IRIS Management Centre would like to provide you with the latest information on the management of the COVID-19 situation towards IRIS Certification®.

Please find here the PDF with updated Appendix to the COVID-19 Communication from 23 March 2020, providing the latest status on the COVID-19 situation and its impact on existing IRIS Certification® per country.

The IRIS Management Centre wishes all the best to you and your close ones.

On 1st May 2020, the IMC (IRIS Management Centre) issued the new, “IRIS Certification® Conformity assessment:2020”. This document outlines the criteria to be eligible for IRIS Certification®. This independent publication supersedes the existing “IRIS Certification rules rev. 03:2017” and the IRIS Addendum 2019 and is available for purchase via the IRIS Portal Shop here. Further information on how to buy the publication can be found in the shop. The IRIS Certification® Conformity assessment:2020 will specifically focus and include content from the:

Generic conformity assessment rules

IRIS Addendum 2019

Improvements based on feedbacks received from all stakeholders

Latest Quality Performance Level evolutions

Decisions from the board on further evolutions of the system.

As for the timeline, web-trainings will be offered for IRIS Auditors in the near future, for audits to be performed from May onwards in the normal Audit Cycle, considering the new updates defined in the Conformity assessment.

The IRIS Certification® Conformity assessment:2020 is published in English.

Lastly, all evolutions mentioned within the IRIS Certification® Conformity assessment:2020 will be reflected within the IRIS Technology (Portal and Audit-Tool version 5.0.4.00).

IRIS Management Centre launched Silver quality performance level that can be awarded to audited companies fulfilling additional quality criteria that will improve the overall culture of quality in the rail sector and the performance of individual rail businesses. Higher quality performance level allows companies to demonstrate their commitment to quality that helps to improve the competitiveness of the sector benefiting the whole supply chain.

There are currently two quality performance levels available for audited companies: Bronze and Silver. Even though all IRIS certified companies have proven their high-quality business management systems, obtaining a higher, Silver level, demonstrates that the company is able to fulfil even additional quality criteria. When in the future the third and highest quality performance level – Gold - will be released, it requires companies again to go one step further in quality. Quality performance levels are displayed in the IRIS portal together with other information related to all IRIS certified companies.

In addition to improving the overall culture of quality in the rail sector, Silver quality performance level also offers individual rail sector companies the possibility to improve the overall performance of their businesses by following the best practices emerging from the experience of sector’s champions.

The new quality performance level is available globally for all rail sector companies audited after 1 May 2020.

IRIS Management Centre would like to provide you with the latest information on the management of the COVID-19 situation towards IRIS Certification®.

Please find here the PDF with updated Appendix to the COVID-19 Communication from 23 March 2020, providing the latest status on the COVID-19 situation and its impact on existing IRIS Certification® per country.

The IRIS Management Centre wishes all the best to you and your close ones.

IRIS Management Centre would like to provide you with the latest information on the management of the COVID-19 situation towards IRIS Certification®.

Please find here the PDF with updated Appendix to the COVID-19 Communication from 23 March 2020, providing the latest status on the COVID-19 situation and its impact on existing IRIS Certification® per country.

The IRIS Management Centre wishes all the best to you and your close ones.

In order to contribute to the collective effort to limit the spread of the COVID-19 virus and to ensure maximum safety, UNIFE has taken the following measures based on the guidelines from the Belgian Government, where our offices are located:

The IRIS Management Centre (IMC) staff is required to work from home but will remain at your disposal by email, mobile phone or via other digital platforms such as Microsoft Teams/Skype

The IMC staff is advised not to participate in external meetings considering alternative solutions are available

The meetings led by the IMC will be converted to conference calls or video-conference meetings instead

The IRIS support team is fully operational and will remain at your disposal as usual by email, and phone

IMC has defined rules and procedures to handle the situation impacting the execution of the audits, which are directly communicated to your certification body

With these measures, we want to contribute to limit the spread of the virus among our team, their families, and our stakeholders, while maintaining our activity running as smoothly as possible. We remain committed to supporting our stakeholders as they navigate these increasingly complex times while continuing our work on our current dossiers.

Meanwhile we will continue to monitor the situation closely and will provide further information as necessary.

EXPO Ferroviaria is Italy's Premier Exhibition for Railway Technology, Products and Systems. The ninth edition welcomed 300 international exhibitors showcasing their products, vision and goals to thousands of guests visiting between 1st and 3rd October. .

As part of the UNIFE stand, IMC welcomed the rail stakeholders during these three days answering their questions and ensuring a direct dialogue. The team has also visited interested companies to discuss and engage them for IRIS Certification™ .

On 1st October, during the panel discussion titled: “International Rail Quality Board (IRQB): a strong tool to push for better Quality through IRIS Certification™ several speakers exchanged their views on Quality.

Tommaso Spanevello, UNIFE’s Public Affairs Manager, kicked-off the discussion by introducing UNIFE and the topic. Mr. Paolo Patti, Head of Quality Assurance Hitachi Rail STS and IRQB representative, followed by presenting the International Rail Quality Board (IRQB) and its vision as a worldwide consortium to drive Quality in the rail sector to further promote the IRIS Certification™ system. He continued by explaining the frame of the IRIS Certification™, the challenges for companies, and the need for a reinforced mindset of quality. He stressed the importance of the International Rail Quality Board (IRQB) to expand the culture of quality through IRIS Certification™ and to improve competitiveness. Ms. Maria Romero, IRIS Manager, gave an overview of the current IRIS deployment worldwide with a particular focus on Italy, as well as a forecast on the potential of this region.

Mr. Davide Torti, IRIS Certification Technician & Turin Head Office at RINA, concluded by giving his view on the IRIS approved certification body and the Italian market of IRIS Certification™.

IMC (IRIS Management Centre) will be participating to the 9th edition of EXPO Ferroviaria, held in Milan, Italy, from 1st to 3rd October 2019. Organized every two years, EXPO Ferroviaria is Italy’s showcase for railway technology, products and systems.

UNIFE will organize a panel-discussion on Tuesday, from 12:15 to 13:30 on the following topic: “International Rail Quality Board (IRQB): a strong tool to push for better Quality through IRIS Certification™”. More information on this event will be announced closer to the date .

In addition of this event, we encourage you meet us on the UNIFE stand B150.

For more questions on IMC’s participation to EXPO Ferroviaria 2020 please contact Agathe Marie at agathe.marie@unife.org. For any questions regarding the fair itself, please visit the official website here.

On 1st July 2019, the IMC (IRIS Management Centre) issued the new Addendum “IRIS Addendum 2019”. This independent publication amending the existing “IRIS Certification rules rev. 03:2017” is free of charge and available via the known distributors. This addendum will specifically focus on the further steps of the Silver Quality Performance Level, that will be officially launched in May 2020.

As for the timeline, web-trainings will be offered for IRIS Auditors in the coming months, for audits to be performed from September onwards, considering the new updates defined in the Addendum. These updates concentrate on evolution of performance levels, implementation of corrections from the clarification of IRIS rev. 03 system – 1st edition and other corrections (wording, typo).

Finally, this IRIS Addendum 2019 is published in English. Translated versions will be published progressively.

IMC published the 12th issue of the Quality Rail Journal, right on time for the UNIFE General Assembly that took place in Dublin, from 12 to 14 June. Following technical developments, the transition phase or even the launch of IRQB, we’ve decided it’s time to inform everyone on the operational, management and strategic plans. We invite you to discover the vision of Sabrina Soussan, CEO of Siemens Mobility and Chair of UNIFE, about IRQB guaranteeing common quality standards in the rail industry, as well as UNIFE Director General, Philippe Citroën’s vision about a common European commitment in quality. We hope you will also enjoy the view of Stefan Siegler, IRIS Chair, and Bernard Kaufmann, IRIS General Manager, about IRIS Certification™ benefits and its development for a continuous improvement.

Click here to download the 12th edition of the Quality Rail journal from the Download Area – Enjoy the read!

This year’s UNIFE General Assembly was held in Dublin from 12 to 14 June, gathering more than 200 leaders of the European rail supply industry, as well as several high level European decision makers. As every year, IMC participated in this major event, to present the status and latest developments of IRIS Certification™, and had various exchanges on several topics with UNIFE Members.

On 12 June, six dialogue forums addressing various topics were suggested to the participants. Among them, a Dialogue Forum on Quality, dedicated to IRIS Certification™, addressed the need to further improve quality to satisfy customer expectations and needs; the current status and upcoming development of the certification; the specific cases of SME’s towards IRIS Certification™, and more.

Andreas Glitsch, Vice President Quality at Bombardier Transportation, emphasized the need to further improve the rail supply industry results in front of its customers, stating: “Rail business needs Quality Performance”.

Hakim Aoudia, EHS & Quality Vice-President at Wabtec-Faiveley, reminded the importance of performance in the Rail Supply Chain and explained how can our sourcing improves the satisfaction of the customers.

Bernard Kaufmann, IRIS General Manager, explained the technical implementation of the silver performance and mentioned what is required to reach this new performance level.

Stefan Siegler, Vice President Business Excellence and Quality Management at Siemens Mobility, and IRIS Chairman, highlighted the importance to align the view on quality performance between the customers and suppliers through, what he named: “The quality dialogue”.

Finally, Roger Dirksmeyer, Managing Director - Rail Systems at FOGTEC, and UNIFE Presiding Board Member, highlighted the challenges that SMEs can meet while implementing the IRIS rev. 03, and the expectations from small and medium size organizations towards the certification.

This Dialogue Forum was the occasion for UNIFE Members to exchange on common topics of interest and experiences within the certification, as well as to learn more about the latest developments and application of the scheme.

During this General Assembly, three high-level round-tables were also conducted and the statutory meeting welcomed 9 new UNIFE Members into the association. The next UNIFE General Assembly will take place in Berlin, on 24-26 June 2020.

The 21st edition of the NT Expo will be held from 19 to 21 March 2019, in Sao Paolo, Brazil. This Fair is a significant meeting point for rail sector companies in South America.

For the first time, IRIS Management Centre is organising a dedicated seminar on IRIS Certification™, moderated by Bernard Kaufmann, IRIS General Manager. This seminar will be the occasion to present the current status of IRIS Certification™ in the world, to outline IRIS Certification™ achievements and future strategy, as well as to present the current situation the South American rail market, regarding IRIS Certification™.

For more information on NT Expo, please visit the official website here, and visit us on Booth 8-50.
In case you have any question(s) about the IRIS Seminar, please contact Bernard Kaufmann, at bernard.kaufmann@unife.org.

IRIS Management Centre (IMC) is pleased to welcome Maria Romero, who has joined the team as our new IRIS Manager, taking over from Haido Sotiriou, who decided to pursue her career in another country.

As IRIS Manager, Maria will be responsible for the daily operational management of the IRIS Certification™ business within the IMC, being the first contact person for all stakeholders. She will also manage the financial aspects of IRIS Certification™, as well as further cross-functional activities, including the organization of trainings and the logistical preparation of conferences and other events.

Maria previously worked in Spain as Manager in a retail company. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Architecture as well as a Master’s degree in European Union.
Maria speaks Spanish, English, French and Italian. You can contact her at: maria.romero@unife.org.

IRIS Management Centre (IMC) is glad to welcome Vanessa Pereira among the team, as Technical Manager. Amongst other activities, she will be responsible for the coordination of technical activities through working groups, as well as the management of the IRIS training processes. Finally, she will give her support in the application and control of the IRIS scheme.

Vanessa previously worked in other European Associations as Technical Affairs Officer and as a Standardisation project Manager. She holds an Engineering degree in Manufacturing Systems. She is fluent in Portuguese, French, English and Italian.

The IMC team participated in InnoTrans 2018, from 18 to 21 September, in Berlin. Besides the signature of the IRQB Consortium Agreement on Tuesday, other focus on IRIS was made during InnoTrans. Worldwide guests came to our stand to meet the team and get answers to their questions in direct dialog, as well as to attend the three IRIS Certification™ sessions organised on the stand during this exciting week:

IRIS achievements and the future strategy:
Stefan Siegler, IRIS Certification™ Chairman and VP Quality Siemens Mobility GmbH, Philippe Citroën, UNIFE Director General, and Bernard Kaufmann, IRIS Certification™ General Manager presented the achievements over the last period and discussed the strategy and way forward.
Please click here to download the presentation.

IRIS Certification™ system rev. 03 and the transition phase:
Eva-Maria Baldauf, Quality Manager, GVE Viehbeck Engineering + Systemtechnik GmbH, and Reiner Engels, Quality Manager, FOGTEC Brandschutz GmbH & Co. KG, shared their experience and feedback regarding the implementation of the IRIS rev. 03 system in small/medium size enterprises. They highlighted their benefits as well as their constraints to achieve the certification.
Please click here to download the presentation.

IRIS Certification™: Technical evolutions & future with ISO:
The audience was informed of upcoming technical evolutions in the next years through the relationship with ISO by Sabrina Paeglow, Senior Experts Siemens Mobility GmbH, ISO/TC 269/WG 05 member and German Mirror Group, and Bernard Kaufmann, IRIS Certification™ General Manager, as convenor of the ISO/TC 269/WG 05 “Rail quality management system”.

Volker Buhrmester, Head of supplier development, Deutsche Bahn AG, explained the view of the customer and its expectation, by highlighting the need of confidence in the IRIS rev. 03 system and by challenging the supply chain to: not improve the show, but show improvements for the benefit of your (and our) customer!
Please click here to download the presentation.

InnoTrans 2018 was a great success for IRIS Certification™, especially with a large international audience attending the IRIS sessions which confirms the already deep worldwide dissemination within the rail companies in the global supply chain.

Berlin, 18 September 2018 | The signature of the International Rail Quality Board (IRQB) Consortium Agreement during InnoTrans by leading companies in rail operations, system integration and equipment manufacturing represents the first joint sector approach towards high product quality.

The IRIS Management Centre is proud to announce the signature of the International Rail Quality Board (IRQB) Consortium Agreement, Board for which the IMC is appointed as the coordinator. We strongly support this initiative which will strengthen the development of IRIS Certification™.

The IRQB aims at global improvement of the product quality within the whole rail sector. It will drive the future IRIS Certification™ evolutions of the rules and therefore push for enhanced process performance within the organisations.

This new seal brings more confidence into the organisations from a customer point of view. It addresses strong commitments in terms of transparency, targets, performance and customer satisfaction. All these companies will now have to maintain the certification level not only throughout the surveillance audits, but through their customer projects on a daily basis.

According to the rules and when respecting their reference date, audits completed before 14 September 2018, have a maximum of 90 days after the audit to close the corrective actions.

Finally, for the companies not being able to fulfil the deadline, a new cycle is still possible as for all newcomers in the scheme. The availability and experience of the auditors is greater now, which will guarantee a quick increase of the well performing supply chain.

Thank you very much for this great success, we’re looking forward in serving the whole rail sector with quality products.

As usual, the IRIS Management Centre will be participating to InnoTrans 2018 from 18 to 21 September, in Berlin (Germany).
You are warmly welcome to meet us at the UNIFE stand in Hall 4.2, Stand 302.
Several presentations and discussions will be held at the UNIFE stand during the week. Among them, three will be dedicated to IRIS Certification™.
Please find here below the detailed IRIS’ Agenda:

In exactly 50 days, on September, 14th 2018, we expect all currently certified companies to have proudly transitioned to the IRIS Certification™ system rev. 03. As of today, already more than 1200 companies have gone through a transition audit. However, with only 50 days left, time becomes sharp to proceed with it for the remaining ones.

If your company has still not gone through a transition audit, it is now the last time to move on and get value of the new assessment methodology elements and international requirements in your organization. A successful transition to the IRIS rev. 03 will increase your visibility on the market. As an IRIS certified company according to the IRIS rev. 03, the organizations are getting an IRIS Certificate and a yearly Quality Performance Level statement, which are both visible and stored in the IRIS Portal (www.iris-rail.org). This demonstrates the commitment of improving product quality and performance to enhance the confidence of the customers.

On 25 June, a seminar dedicated to IRIS Certification™ rev.03 was organised by the Swiss Association of Rail Industry (SWISSRAIL), in Zurich. 45 representatives of local rail sector companies and members of SWISSRAIL attended the event, and several speakers were invited to share their experience and knowledge after almost one year since the beginning of the transition phase.

Bernard Kaufmann, IRIS General Manager, recalled the importance of product quality and performance in the rail sector. He also shared the first feedback from the rev.03 audits that have already been successfully conducted. Andreas Heinzmann from CC-Rail expressed the necessary targets that companies must aim to improve revenue with good quality, whereas Bernd Meyer, DQS Lead Auditor shared his experience on the implementation of best practices and issues detected during his audits. The other speakers also shared their expectations within the scheme and their experience within IRIS rev.03.

The IRIS Management Centre (IMC) published its 10th edition of The Quality Rail Journal, just in time for the UNIFE General Assembly, held in Warsaw on 20-22 June 2018. This new edition provides an overview of the status of the IRIS Certification™ transition phase, which is less than four months away from its deadline. This issue also provides you with the testimony from Weidmüller, the first company that obtained the new IRIS certificate rev. 03, as well as the good practices of Alstom while conducting the transition.

The 11th edition of the Quality Rail Journal will be published in September and will provide you with a deep analysis of the transition phase: status, results and feedback analysis.

Please click here to download the newsletter from the Download Area - Enjoy reading it.

As every year, the whole IMC team participated in the UNIFE General Assembly, in which the development and status of IRIS Certification™ were presented to the audience, among many other topics.

For the first time this year, a new format was presented to highlight UNIFE achievements and activities, introducing 6 dialogue forums on different topics, including one on Quality. The session started with a focus on ERWA and was followed by a round-table on “IRIS Certification™: From quality in the railway industry to the railway sector level”, moderated by Bernard Kaufmann, IRIS General Manager. Stefan Siegler, IRIS Chairman focused on the importance of demonstrating excellent performance and a good product quality to the customers. The new IRIS approach supports and encourages these elements. Ronald Seidelman, Managing Director at Gutehoffnungshütte Radsatz GmbH, Michael Betz, Quality Management Rail at Schaeffler and Slawomir Bielak, Sales Director at Thoni Alutec expressed their experience and challenges while implementing the ISO/TS 22163 requirements and the new elements of the assessment methodology of the IRIS Certification™ rev.03 system.

This dialogue forum gave the opportunity to many representatives of UNIFE members to exchange and comment on common topic of interests and to learn more about the latest development and application of the scheme.

Over 170 registered participants took part in today’s webinars organized by the IMC, for IRIS Certification™ certified companies on the transition phase.

Stefan Siegler IRIS Certification™ Chairman, and Bernard Kaufmann IRIS Certification™ General Manager, reinforced the challenges, timeline and most importantly, the benefits of the new IRIS rev. 03 System.

They highlighted the importance of timely planning, as well as illustrated the details regarding the execution of the transition audit. Q&A sessions was also conducted, during both webinars.

Giampiero Belcredi, Chief Operating Officer of Kiwa Cermet Italia and Bernard Kaufmann, IRIS General Manager have officially sealed their cooperation through the signature of a Framework Agreement. This additional approved certification body is committed to promote the upcoming development of the scheme.

Kiwa Cermet is an Italian based certification body belonging to a Dutch group, which will now focus its growth on the transport and rail business in global areas where they are already well established.

IMC wishes a fruitful collaboration to further support the deployment of IRIS Certification™ rev.03. The last evolution published 6 months ago is now entering in a new development phase. This evolution is based on the requirements contained in the ISO/TS 22163 and processed with the rules published by UNIFE.

Click here to see the complete list of IRIS Certification™ Certification Bodies.

Time is flying since the June launch of the IRIS Certification™ rev.03 system. As of today, already more than 100 companies have gone through a transition audit for ISO/TS 22163 and 52 companies have extended the validity of their certificates to the IRIS Certification™ rev.03. However, with only nine month left, there are still hundreds of companies that need to proceed with the transition.

Keep in mind that this deadline also applies to ISO 9001:2015. So, there isn’t a minute to lose and we encourage all IRIS rev. 02.1. certified companies to get in touch with their certification body. All IRIS auditors are updated and ready to perform rev. 03 audits and certification bodies are ready to support you. Take the opportunity to pro-actively plan your transition now and to select your preferred date.

UNIFE, the European Rail Industry Association, gathered additional support from Spanish railway operators for the International Railway Industry Standard (IRIS) with the first signature of a MoU with Metro Madrid. The signing took place on 17 November at the Maintenance Depot Canillejas in Madrid, with Borja Carabante Muntada (CEO) representing Metro Madrid and Philippe Citroën (UNIFE Director General) representing UNIFE. Isaac Centellas, (Engineering and Maintenance Division Director) and Pedro Pablo Pascual, (Maintenance Area Director) attended the meeting and presented the maintenance site to the guests.

The MoU highlights the commitment of the signatories to use IRIS Certification™ to measure sustainable improvements in rail organisations. It clearly states several areas of cooperation between UNIFE and Metro Madrid on IRIS Certification™, but in particular on the maintenance processes and the development within the local supply chain. The newly updated IRIS Certification™ rev.03 system is focused on customer specific needs and performance evaluation to reach the expected product quality.

UNIFE Director General, Philippe Citroën, stated, “I’m very pleased to sign this MoU on IRIS with Metro Madrid, a major public transport operator in Spain. This MoU confirms the cooperation between industry and operators to improving quality through IRIS.”

Isaac Centellas, Engineering and Maintenance Division Director at Metro Madrid remarked: “It is important that Metro Madrid align its processes to ensure high quality for the internal customer: Metro Madrid operation division. We consider that the implementation of IRIS Certification™ will bring added value for the whole rail sector.”

In exactly one year, on September, 14th 2018, we expect your company to have proudly transitioned from IRIS rev. 02.1 to the IRIS Certification system rev. 03. This deadline applies not only to the IRIS Certification transition, but also to ISO 9001:2015.

Currently, two companies have successfully passed the transition audit, and the preventive planning of the transition audits for many other companies has begun. This demonstrates the interest of companies in ensuring product quality and customer satisfaction by adapting their business management systems and getting the added value of the new assessment methodology elements and international requirements in their processes.

All IRIS rev.02.1 certified companies are encouraged to prepare and plan their transitions audits in cooperation with their certification bodies. All IRIS Certification™ auditors are updated and ready to perform rev. 03 audits.

Are you a company considering to become IRIS certified? Are you a Certification Body seeking information to provide your clients with? The About IRIS CertificationTM provides you with all the essential information you need to know. What it is? What are the benefits? Who can apply? How to proceed? Everything is inside the About IRIS CertificationTM. Please click here to download it from the Download Area.

The IRIS Management Centre published its 9th edition of the Quality Rail Journal, just in time for the UNIFE General Assembly, held in Barcelona from 21 to 23 June 2017. This new edition, edited right after the official publication of the IRIS CertificationTM rev.03 scheme, provides a big-picture perspective on how this new scheme was developed. It also explains how it should be implemented in all stakeholder organisations, in order to ensure our joint future. Testimonies, return of experiences and way more, are also in this new issue.

Please click here to download the newsletter from the Download Area - Enjoy the read.

Following the publication of the specific rail requirements for business management systems under, ISO/TS 22163, last week - UNIFE as officially published as of today, June 1st, the IRIS Certification™ rules:2017. Taken together with the ISO/TS, these constitute the IRIS Certification™ rev.03 system.

The European vision on company organisation is now officially recognised worldwide, which is a significant advantage for our members and for the European industry as a whole. With this stage complete, we must encourage all interested parties to implement the IRIS Certification™ rev.03 in order to enjoy its full benefits.

We would like to extend our warmest thanks to all contributors to these documents, especially in the case of the ISO/TS, in which the UNIFE proposal was (almost) completely integrated.

The new global standard for quality management systems in the railway sector, ISO/TS 22163:2017 Railway applications — Quality management system — Business management system requirements for rail organizations: ISO 9001:2015 and particular requirements for application in the rail sector was published by ISO on May, 24th 2017.

The latest evolution of the IRIS system will come into force on 1st June 2017, under the title IRIS Certification™ rev. 03. This designation encompasses the whole system, composed of different elements and responsibilities, which is now under application.

The ISO/TS 22163:2017 is owned by ISO. It contains the requirements of the ISO 9001:20015 Standard and the supplemental rail-specific requirements.

The IRIS Certification™ rules:2017 are owned by UNIFE and contain all the relevant rules relating to assessment methodology and the certification process.

On Wednesday, 3 may, a seminar will be organised at AENOR INTERNACIONAL SAU, in Madrid, on the topic: “IRIS Certification™ - Transition to the new IRIS Certification™ system”. This seminar will be the first one related to the new rules of the certification, in its transition to ISO/TS. Therefore, the IRIS Management Team encourage all IRIS certified companies and IRIS members to participate to this important event, to learn more about the concrete evolution of the scheme and its impact for each certified company.

Please click here to register to the event and download the programme by clicking on the link below. Please, be aware that the event will be held in Spanish.

Click here to read the article published by Vía Libre, Spanish Railway Journal, on the evolution of IRIS.

[English translation below]

The new global standard for quality in the railway sector and the associated certification rules will be published in May.

The final transitional audits should be completed in July 2018.

The new global standard for quality management systems in the railway sector, ISO / TS 22163 and the associated certification rules, will be published in May this year, which will require changes to the quality management systems of organizations .

In October 2016, the European Railway Industry Association, UNIFE, announced the decision of the Technical Committee 269 of the International Organization for Standardization to replace the global standard for quality management systems in the railway sector - IRIS Rev. 02 evolves to ISO / TS 22163.

Thus, organizations certified according to the IRIS Rev. 02 standard will have to successfully undergo transition audits to adapt their certificates to ISO / TS 22163, which is based on the structure and requirements of ISO 9001: 2015, and adopt their totality, including additional requirements for the railway sector.

ISO / TS 22163 aims to, further develop the organization's quality management system, focus on continuous improvement and prevention of nonconformities, include specific requirements and methods for railway customers, and avoid waste and loss in the supply chain. The new standard requires certified auditors to overcome training supervised by Unife.

First audits
The first transition audits are planned in July and August 2017. As IRIS Rev. 02 certificates expire on 14 September 2018, and as all nonconformities in the audits must be resolved before a new ISO / TS 22163 certificate can be issued, the latest transition audits should be completed by July 2018.

IRIS Management Centre (IMC) is glad to welcome Haido Sotiriou as our new IRIS Manager, who will be taking over Kujtesa Hajredini’s responsibilities. Haido will be responsible for the daily management of the IRIS Certification™ business within the IMC and therefore, will be the first contact person for all stakeholders. Meanwhile, IMC would like to warmly thank Kujtesa Hajredini for the almost five years spent within IRIS team, contributing to the development of the certification and fruitful relationships with our numerous stakeholders. We wish her all the best in her new projects within UNIFE!

On 7 February, in Brussels, Stefan Siegler, Vice President of Business Excellence and Quality Management at Siemens Mobility, was elected as Chairman of the IRIS Steering Committee (SteCo) and IRIS Advisory Board (IAB). Replacing Mark Manley, who greatly contributed to building worldwide recognition and furthering the development of IRIS, Stefan Siegler’ main target is to ensure that the IRIS Certification™ level corresponds to the expected performance quality. Furthermore, he will work to increase worldwide acknowledgement and applications of IRIS Certification™ throughout the entire value chain.

IRIS Management Centre (IMC) is glad to welcome Tamás Bujdosó, as Technical Advisor, joining the team for the implementation of the already started evolution of IRIS Certification™. He will be working on the preparation of the different documents linked to the new assessment methodology, the dry run audits, and the trainings, among others. He’s background is based on supplier quality management and project management within Bosch and Knorr-Bremse.

1520-1435 Partnership: during the InnoTrans week in Berlin, the 9th conference on railway engineering was organised. Numerous speakers highlighted projects, analyses or achievements to strengthen the cooperation between the two gauge areas. Philippe Citroën, UNIFE Director-General, welcomed the publication of the second edition of the handbook on technical regulations. He stressed the need of further cooperation and presented the status of the IRIS Certification™ in Russian Federation.

The voice of the customer: Valentin Gapanovich, Vice President of Russian Railways, came to the UNIFE stand where he highlighted the need to continue the work on improving quality and confirmed his support as an operator to reach this goal. He welcomed the progress on the evolution towards an ISO/TS and the related assessment methodology. Finally, on the Russian market, he will be very attentive on the accurate application of the IRIS rules, being an essential point for success.

International projects: H.E. Jorge Cardenas, Bolivian Ambassador in Germany, met Philippe Citroën to discuss the opportunity to include the European industry in South American projects. Further talks will be organised to specify the needs.

IRIS 10th anniversary: among the announcements on the future evolution of IRIS Certification™ (see previous news), UNIFE invited the stakeholders to celebrate the achievements on its stand. The IRIS Advisory Board was largely represented as well as partners – certification bodies, auditors – and certified companies’ representatives. It was the momentum to recall the successes of the last years but also to shape the future.

InnoTrans 2016 was a great edition, also for IRIS Certification™. There was a lot of interest to get the latest news about IRIS during the week in Berlin. At the IRIS Certification™ booth at the UNIFE stand, we welcomed worldwide customers and could measure the very global knowledge on our scheme and the future expectations from the rail sector.

The IRIS Management Centre published the 8th edition of the Quality Rail Journal prior to InnoTrans 2016, in Berlin. This new issue provides the latest news relating to IRIS Certification™, an update on the worldwide recognition and development of the certification, as well as a four pages technical dossier, on the upcoming transition phase, after ISO/TS publication. Finally, the three new UNIFE members (MEN Holdings, 21Net and Teleste), ratified last June 2016 during the UNIFE General Assembly in Amsterdam, testify on their experience within IRIS Certification™, since they obtained the certificate.

Please click here to access the Donwload Area and download the IRIS newsletter.

On 21 & 22 September, UNIFE and IRIS team presented the last news on the coming evolutions of the scheme.
The principles were explained by Mark Manley, IRIS Chairman and VP Quality Bombardier, then Philippe Citroën, UNIFE Director-General, presented the achievements over the last 10 years. The transition process details to move from the current IRIS Rev.02.1 version to the future ISO/TS, was presented by Bernard Kaufmann, IRIS General Manager.
Please click here to download the presentation.

The session dedicated to the changes in the conformity assessment process was moderated by Angela de Heymer, IRIS Senior Manager, and the details were given by the sector representatives actively working on these evolutions: Stefan Siegler, VP Business Excellence and Quality Management at Siemens AG and Volker Buhrmester, Head of Quality Standards Rolling Stock at DB AG.
Please click here to download the presentation.

For more details on the evolutions, please look at the FAQ section of the IRIS website here.

This InnoTrans was a success and especially a large audience attended the IRIS talks. It was also the time to celebrate the 10th IRIS anniversary and the already deep dissemination within the worldwide supply chain.

Once again, the IRIS Management Centre will be participating to InnoTrans 2016 from 20 to 23 September, in Berlin (Germany). Please come and meet us at the UNIFE stand in Hall 4.2, Stand 302.

Several presentations and discussions will be held at the UNIFE stand during the week. Among them, two will be dedicated to IRIS Certification TM. Furthermore, a cocktail to celebrate IRIS 10th anniversary will be organised at the UNIFE stand, on Wednesday to promote networking. See below the detailed IRIS’ Agenda:

UNIFE, the European Rail Industry Association, gathered new support of railway operators for the International Railway Industry Standard (IRIS) with the first signature of a MoU on IRIS with a public transport operator, Ferrocarril Metropolità de Barcelona (FMB). The signing took place on 25 July at the FMB headquarters in Barcelona, with Marc Grau (Metro Network Director) representing FMB and Philippe Citroën (UNIFE Director General) representing UNIFE.

The MoU highlights the commitment of the signatories on the necessity of using the IRIS standard to reach sustainable improvements in rail organisations. It stipulates a number of areas of cooperation between UNIFE and FMB on IRIS, but in particular on the maintenance processes and the development and dissemination of an IRIS scheme within the global supply chain. It will establish clear standards of quality requirements and ensure that customer specific needs are reached in terms of product quality.

UNIFE Director General, Philippe Citroën, stated, “I’m very pleased to sign this first MoU on IRIS with TMB of Barcelona, the first public transport operator to officially recognise the importance of IRIS. This MoU once again reaffirms the need for industry and operators to cooperate closely to improving quality through IRIS.”

Marc Grau, Metro Network Director at FMB remarked: “In our 2015-2020 strategic plan, quality is a must: we need added value in our organisations and at the supplier level in order to sustain our growth. We consider that the implementation of the IRIS standard in the industry is a key to achieving this goal and it will be a mandatory requirement for future tenders.”

JSC Russian Railway, RZD, organised an IRIS conference at its premises in St. Petersburg on July 6th 2016, with the participation of the IRIS Advisory Board members. The conference focused on the results of the implementation of the IRIS Standard in the period 2009 – 2015 and the further development perspective till 2020.
Several testimonies were exchanged between operators, the industry and certification bodies.

Philippe Citroën, UNIFE Director-General, highlighted the long-term cooperation with NP-UIRE and also RZD by signing the Memorandum of Understanding with IRIS in 2015, as one of the first rail operators.

Oleg Senkovskyi, First Deputy Head of the Centre for Technical Audit at RZD, remarked how RZD is supporting the implementation of IRIS in the Russian Federation and believes in its huge potential for improvement of quality. The RZD policy toward its suppliers started already in 2009 by requiring the IRIS certification.

Volker Buhrmester, DB AG Chief Quality Rolling Stock, reinforced the need of implementing an effective and state of the art quality management in the railway business. He expressed that DB AG is driving the partnership with the railway industry for systematic improvements of product quality based on IRIS and the related signed Memorandum of Understanding.

Mark Manley, Bombardier Transportation Vice President Quality and IRIS Chairman, presented the key milestones for the future of IRIS and stressed the important role of all stakeholders on the coming developments.

To complement the conference and after the IRIS Advisory Board meeting, the members visited the Luzhskaya sorting station of Oktyabrskaya Railroad. As the gateway to the Merchant Sea Port of Ust-Luga, Luzhskaya sorting station is one of the biggest transport projects in Russia for the last twenty years, implemented by JSC "Russian Railways" in cooperation with Siemens AG and Bombardier Transportation. The visit of the control centre of the marshalling area was highly instructive.

The NP-UIRE communication compiled a video report from these events. You can watch it here.

In line with the developments set out in the IRIS strategy last year, the IRIS Steering Committee and IRIS Advisory Board approved the concepts for further improvements in the assessment methodology (considering customer and market needs), and the related impact on the certification process, during the board meetings held in St Petersburg and hosted by the Russian operator RZD. The UNIFE-IRIS working group and the IMC will now work out the detailed contents and launch the improvements, together with the requirements, which will be published in an external document. This follows the decisions taken at the ISO/TC 269 plenary meeting in Porto, where it was:
- Approved to transform IRIS to an ISO/TS
- Approved to have an ISO publication date of no later than May 2017

The detailed transition phase and important steps for all stakeholders will be communicated during the InnoTrans fair at the UNIFE Stand, Hall 4.2 Stand 302, during a dedicated IRIS session.

UNIFE, the European Rail Industry Association, continues to expand the support of railway operators for the International Railway Industry Standard (IRIS) with this week’s signature of a MoU on IRIS with the French Railways operator, SNCF. The signing took place on 1 June at the SNCF headquarters in St Denis, France with Pierre Izard (Director for the Railway System and Technologies and Chief Technology Officer, SNCF) representing SNCF and Philippe Citroën (UNIFE Director General) representing UNIFE.

The MoU confirms the commitment of the signatories on the advancement of the IRIS standard. In particular, it stipulates a number of areas of cooperation between UNIFE and SNCF on IRIS, but most notably on the design and development processes supported by quality monitoring and the development and dissemination of an IRIS scheme adapted to the industrial target in France. As with the many other MoUs on IRIS signed by UNIFE with other major operators, the signatories will seek to establish better control of quality requirements and ensure that customer specific needs are cascaded within the supply chain.

UNIFE Director General, Philippe Citroën, remarked, “Railway operator commitment to IRIS is central to the next stage of growth for the standard which already boasts over 1300 IRIS certified manufacturers throughout the world. We are especially pleased to sign this MoU on IRIS today with SNCF.”

Pierre Izard, Director for the Railway System and Technologies and Chief Technology Officer at SNCF declared: “A large scale rollout of IRIS will mean that the sector will efficiently progress, better take into account the expectations of rail customers and supply its products at an improved price. Three great reasons for SNCF to engage with UNIFE.”

For further information, please contact John Harcus, UNIFE Head of Communication

Today, 18 May 2016, UNIFE & IRIS Group is pleased to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the IRIS certification and has arranged a newsletter emphasizing the standard’s accomplishments over the past decade as well as taking a look at what the future holds for IRIS.

A special thanks to the UNIFE companies and IRIS stakeholders for their role in the success of this standard which continues to instill a culture of quality within our industry and sector.

On April 28th, a new Framework Agreement has been signed between UNIFE and CCS Certification. Huang Shiyuan, General Manager of CCS Certification and Bernard Kaufmann, IRIS General Manager officially sealed the cooperation on IRIS. Following this commitment, CCS Certification becomes the 16th Certification Body approved to assess companies and deliver IRIS Certificates.

CCS Certification is a well-established certification body in China, which will now focus its growth on rail business in the Far East.

We wish a fruitful cooperation to support the global development of IRIS.

UNIFE continues to gather support of railway operators on the International Rail Industry Standard (IRIS) with yesterday's signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on IRIS with Dutch Railways (NS/NedTrain). The signing took place at NS/NedTrain offices in Berkel-Enschot, Netherlands with Mr Luc Theuws (Director of Supply Chain Operations at NS) representing NS/NedTrain and Philippe Citroën (UNIFE Director General) representing UNIFE. This is the latest in a series of MoUs on IRIS signed between UNIFE and railway operators over the past seven months that includes Deutsche Bahn, RZD (Russian Railways), SNCB (Belgian Railways), and Swiss Federal Railways.

Yesterday’s MoU confirms the intention of the signatories to facilitate an exchange of information on quality management topics and the advancement of the IRIS standard. Specifically, the MoU stipulates an exchange on quality deficiencies typology, root cause analysis of defects, and specificity of local organisations. Nedtrain, which is the Dutch Railways’ locomotive and rolling stock maintenance and repair company, has already begun the implementation of IRIS at their maintenance sites.

UNIFE Director General, Philippe Citroën, remarked, “We are pleased to continue to see the affirmation of railway operator interest in the IRIS scheme. With the support of the operators, like NS/NedTrain, and the nearly 1300 IRIS certified manufacturers, a culture of quality will continue to be instilled in the global rail supply market, leading to a better and more competitive rail transport mode.”

NedTrain Director Supply Chain Operations, Luc Theuws, stated, “Our people breathe Quality; this means that we strive towards continuous quality improvement of all actors in the supply chain, with operators and suppliers alike. A growth model can certainly facilitate this and IRIS and its methodology fit within our goals.”

UNIFE expects to sign additional MoUs on IRIS with other major railway undertakings throughout Europe and the world throughout 2016. For further information, please contact Bernard Kaufmann, IRIS General Manager, at Bernard.kaufmann@unife.org.

The objective of this MoU is to promote mutually beneficial cooperation between the signatories on quality standards in the rail sector. This cooperation is expected to focus on increasing the exchange of knowledge and experience in a bilateral context on a number of relevant topics such as quality methods, operational and integration maturity levels, and risk transparency, among others specified in the MoU.

The activities outlined in the MoU seek to create a favourable context for the development of a strong culture of quality in the rail sector and especially in Switzerland.

UNIFE looks forward to productive collaboration between IRIS and Swiss Federal Railways on quality improvements. UNIFE has already signed several MoUs on IRIS with operators, including Deutsche Bahn, Russian Railways (RZD), and Belgian Railways (SNCB). UNIFE and IRIS leadership are expected to sign additional MoUs on IRIS with other major railway undertakings throughout Europe and the world throughout 2016.

The IRIS certification is mainly deployed in the rail industry, in the design, development and manufacturing activities. However, also railway operators can be IRIS certified trough their maintenance activities. On 4th December 2015, the first IRIS Certificate was delivered to an operator and handed over to the maintenance site of SITARAIL, the railway concession of Bolloré Group between Ivory Coast and Burkhina Faso.

Bernard Kaufmann, IRIS General Manager, congratulated Joel Hounsinou, Director-General of SITARAIL and his team for the efforts made to achieve this level. The ceremony hosted in Abidjan – Treichville Station gathered more than 100 attendees very proud of this honour. Raymond de Cloedt, the SGS auditor summarized his feedback from the audit done in last October, and reminded the next steps to further achieve and improve the quality. Bernard Kaufmann insisted on the targets of IRIS, which emphasize reliable and sustainable quality for all customers. Joel Hounsinou highlighted the strong basis achieved for further development of the concession in this area as well as the satisfaction of this recognition.

The single track line with a meter gauge provides three per day freight and three per week passenger services along the 1250 kms between the port of Abidjan and Ouagadougou. The current development of the area will be sustained by consequent investments on the infrastructure and rolling stock in short and mid-terms.

The Italian Association for Quality Culture (AICQ) has organized a working day dedicated to rail, beginning of December in Florence. After a debate on the European 4th railway package, with the participation of Leonardo Dongiovanni from UNIFE, the second subject was centered on IRIS. Bernard Kaufmann, IRIS General Manager, has presented the objectives and expected evolution in term of quality in our sector. He has insisted on the fact to “take the IRIS train” now in order to capitalize the current best practices. He also drafted the evolution linked to the publication of the new ISO 9001 standard. Paolo Patti from Ansaldo STS, presented the current status of the company and the areas of improvement regarding the Italian market. Later on, during a round table, Emilio Sereni from Bombardier Transportation, gave some hints on future evolution and Gianluca Terzi from RINA, showed his interest regarding the transition to ISO/9001 by asking several questions. The seminar was held in presence of more than 100 representatives of the Italian rail sector who had the opportunity to exchange on these topics with the speakers.

The IMC (IRIS Management Centre) is pleased to announce that, as of 14 October, the total number of IRIS certified sites has reached 1200, already meeting the 2015 annual business objective. Since the opening of the certification to infrastructure companies in July 2015, the IMC already counts several companies that have started the IRIS certification process for their infrastructure activities. This new scope, as well as the recent IRIS Addendum 2015, contribute to the continual development and improvement of the standard and help IRIS to further expand worldwide.

Please click here if you are interesting in becoming an IRIS member and applying for IRIS certification.

At the occasion of the 2015 EXPO 1520, held this week in Moscow, UNIFE, the European Rail Industry Association, represented by UNIFE Director-General Philippe Citroën, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with RZD (Russian Railways), represented by Valentin Gapanovich, Senior Vice-President, RZD, for cooperation in the areas of technical documentation exchange, best practices, and the promotion of a strong culture of quality in the rail sector through IRIS.

The main activities foreseen for UNIFE and RZD in this MoU include: the establishment of a regular dialogue within the existing UNIFE/IRIS committees and the development and dissemination of the IRIS scheme in Russia and CIS. The overall goal of the activities outlined in this MoU is to reinforce a favourable context for the development of the rail sector worldwide and especially in Russia and the CIS.

This MoU follows eight years of cooperation between UNIFE and the Russian Non-commercial Partnership “Union of Industries of Railway Equipment” (NP-UIRE) and will focus on the continued promotion of the IRIS scheme in Russia and the CIS. At present, there are over 90 Russian companies that are IRIS certified, making it one of the largest IRIS certified markets in the world, which is largely a result of the past close cooperation between IRIS and RZD/NP-UIRE.

Valentin Gapanovich, Senior Vice-President of RZD, commented that the signature of this new MoU will give further impetus for IRIS development and added that, with the announcement of the new IRIS scope of certification "Infrastructure", he also expects further improvements in product quality.

This MoU was signed in the context of the fifth edition of the International Fair of Railway Equipment and Technology “EXPO 1520”, which is one of the largest rolling stock and rail technology exhibitions in Russia. Bernard Kaufmann, IRIS General Manager attended the fair and took the opportunity to meet with current IRIS certified companies and other international rail sector stakeholders.

On Friday, 21 August 2015, at Deutsche Bahn (DB) AG Headquarters in Berlin, UNIFE, the European Rail Industry Association, represented by UNIFE Chairman Dr Lutz Bertling and UNIFE Director-General Philippe Citroën, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for Cooperation with DB AG, represented by Dr Volker Kefer, Member of the DB Management Board for Infrastructure, Services and Technology on the advancement of IRIS.

The objective of this MoU is to promote mutually beneficial cooperation between the signatories on quality standards in the rail sector. Such cooperation is expected to focus on increasing the exchange of knowledge and experience in a bilateral context on product quality, which is defined as product-related fulfilment of customer requirements. The activities outlined in this MoU endeavour to create a favourable context for the development of the rail sector worldwide and, especially, in Germany.

UNIFE looks forward to continued fruitful cooperation between IRIS and Deutsche Bahn on quality improvements. Mark Manley, Chairman of the IRIS Steering Committee as well as Bernard Kaufmann, IRIS General Manager, expect to sign additional MoUs on IRIS with other major operators in the near future.

As a preparation of the implementation of the IRIS Addendum 2015 and the update of the Audit-Tool, IRIS Management Centre (IMC) has communicated on the consequently technical evolutions to the Certification Body (CB) representatives during the bi-yearly certification body meeting on June, 25th 2015 in Brussels.

Since the official launch in July 1st, IMC has started to visit some Certification Bodies as AENOR in Madrid and AFNOR in China, to train the auditors on these evolutions and to give them all updated information they need to perform their daily work. As the auditors are of the main stakeholders affected by the application of the new evolutions, these updated training are more than recommended.

Bernard Kaufmann, IRIS General Manager, has done training in Shanghai, organized by AFNOR China from July, 2nd to July, 3rd, with 17 participants. He had the opportunity to explain the last updates on IRIS rules, the evolution linked to the IRIS Addendum implementation 2015, as well as the last update of the IRIS Audit-Tool. The auditors had the chance to apply these update through several exercises, in order to feel comfortable on these evolution when performing future audits.

During the yearly AENOR’ Auditor Forum on July, 24th, Angela de Heymer, IRIS Senior Manager, has presented these evolutions as well, to the IRIS Auditors from AENOR. She explained as well the future IRIS strategy. David Martinez, AENOR IRIS Product Manager, completed her presentation with some news on the IRIS Auditor management and has presented the planning of AENOR for the next year.

IMC seeks to guaranty a good quality of audits through proper training of the auditors and communication to the CBs for the benefit of current and future IRIS certified companies.

IRIS Management Centre is launching the IRIS Addendum 2015.
The IRIS Addendum 2015 will simplify the evaluation process by introducing an assessment sheet as the new mandatory tool for auditors to be used during the evaluation of a company instead of the current questionnaire. This assessment sheet will also be useful for the audited company as well, offering much clearer feedback and more concrete examples of good practices to implement. Moreover, the IRIS Addendum 2015 creates a complete product scope for infrastructure companies by enlarging the existing scope 19.

The distributors are informed and will
1) Distribute IRIS Addendum 2015 to their existing clients
2) update their Web portal, allowing all IRIS interested new customers to download the complete documents in all related languages (English, French, German, Polish and Russian).

From today on, you can find the IRIS Addendum 2015 also in the DOWNLOAD AREA, on the home page of the IRIS website.
Following this IRIS Addendum 2015, the IRIS Audit-Tool (available for IRIS members only) has been updated as well. The version 4.2.0.00 manages all changes provided by the IRIS Addendum 2015, thus it contains now the entire set of requirements including the ISO 9001:2008 one. Therefore, copyright fees are due even by upgrading an existing Audit-Tool (€150,00). New licenses will cost €600,00.

The upgrade of the current IRIS Audit-Tool to V 4.2.0.00 has to be done via the current version. By opening the Audit-Tool a message for upgrade will appear. By downloading and installing this upgrade, the client accepts the payment conditions.

The IRIS Management Centre (IMC) is pleased to present you the 7th edition of ‘The Quality Rail Journal’.
Published for the UNIFE General Assembly in Bucharest, the newsletter focuses on the IRIS Addendum 2015, with articles written by Rudolf Frick, Chairman of the German Rail Industry Association (VDB) Working Committee on Quality and Project Management and Ekaterina Bochkareva, Head of railway and Aerospace Certification sector at Russian Register, one of the fifteen certification bodies of IRIS. Also in this newsletter, Gheorghe Sirbu, General Manager at ASTRA Vagoane, IRIS certified company, shares his experience with the certification and gives his view on the current situation of the rail market in Romania.
Please click on the "PDF document" bellow to download the 7th IRIS newsletter.

On 17 February, a delegation from IRIS participated to the yearly Forum at ABB Switzerland AG in Turgi, Switzerland, organised by DQS (IRIS approved certification body). This seminar on “Perspectives - Quality and Reliability in the rail sector”, gathered around 30 representatives of the local rail companies.

Currently, more than 50 Swiss companies are IRIS certified and others are in a preparation phase. The Swiss rail industry, committed to IRIS since the beginning was in 2006 (launch of IRIS) the first IRIS certified company in Switzerland.

The seminar was opened by Daniel Taddeo, SQS-IRIS Product Manager and followed by?Hubert Rizzi, SQS-Product Manager who presented the status of the ISO 9001:2015 and highlighted the objectives, approach and improvements of the new coming revision.

Hans-Jörg Schürch, Business Excellence Manager, SBB AG and member of the IRIS Advisory board, gave to the participants a detailed overview about the supplier requirements from the SBB point of view. He reinforced the importance of IRIS and the support given by SBB to the certification.

Angela de Heymer, IRIS Senior Manager, presented the current IRIS status, the last evolutions and the quality approach promoted by IRIS. She highlighted the coming improvements and the launch of the IRIS Addendum in June 2015. Furthermore she gave the vision for the IRIS Revision 3.0 and the link to the upcoming ISO 9001:2015

At the end of the seminar, the participants had the opportunity to visit the ABB Switzerland AG facilities, especially the assembly area and the test laboratory.

On December 15th, the Certification Body Framework Agreement between Quality Austria and UNIFE has been signed between Konrad Scheiber, CEO of Quality Austria and Bernard Kaufmann, IRIS General Manager. Therefore, Quality Austria officially becomes the 15th Certification Body, delivering the IRIS certification.

Quality Austria is the leader for system certification in Austria and will focus their activities in countries where they are already widely introduced such as Eastern Europe and Russia.

We believe that this cooperation will help IRIS to further develop the system.

During the IRIS Steering Committee, the committee members confirmed the election of Mark Manley, Vice President Quality from Bombardier Transportation as Chairman of the International Railway Industry Standard (IRIS) Steering Committee (SteeCo). Mr. Manley was also selected as the next Chairman of the IRIS Advisory Board (IAB), replacing Hubert de Blay.

Mark Manley will continue to work on developing IRIS in the future and on its recognition worldwide.

IMC (IRIS Management Centre) is pleased to present you the 6th edition of ‘The Quality Rail Journal’. Published on time for the international trade fair InnoTrans in Berlin, the newsletter is focusing on quality culture in Germany.
The German Railway Industry Association (VDB), Deutsche Bahn AG, WEILBURGER Coatings, DQS, ZF Friedrichshafen AG…the testimony of all these companies or associations, involved in different way in the rail sector, give us a an interesting overview of the German market regarding quality culture and IRIS certification.

From 23 to 26 September 2014 in Berlin, IRIS participated to the tenth edition of the international trade fair InnoTrans, which opened its doors to 138,872 trade visitors worldwide.

The tenth edition of the international trade fair InnoTrans gathered 2,758 exhibitors and was attended by 138,872 trade visitors worldwide. InnoTrans is unquestionably the most important trade fair event in term of industry’s product exhibition.

For the fourth time, IRIS Management Centre participated to the fair, on the UNIFE stand, welcoming visitors at the IRIS booth. During these four days event, IRIS talk sessions have been organised, opened to all visitors.

During the first session, on Tuesday, Philippe Citroën, UNIFE Director-General, Hubert de Blay, IRIS Chairman - Alstom Transport and Bernard Kaufmann, IRIS General Manager, presented the last IRIS status and highlighted the added value of IRIS for all the rail sector.Link to presentation in pdf

During the last session, on Thursday, Bernard Kaufmann and Angela de Heymer, IRIS Senior Manager, received Axel Schuppe, VDB General Manager to present the future evolutions of IRIS.Link to presentation in pdf

For IRIS Management Centre, this tenth edition was a real success, with a significant audience to the IRIS sessions, a lot of questions from visitors and the interest of several companies in becoming IRIS member, looking to obtain the certification later on.

Thank you for your visit and interest. We look forward seeing you again in two years for the InnoTrans 2016.

IRIS Management Centre cordially invites all interested parties to attend the following IRIS presentations/discussions during InnoTrans 2014, at the UNIFE stand in Hall 4.2, Stand 302 from 23-26 September in Berlin, Germany:

In the frame of the signature of MoU with the American Public Transport Association
(APTA), a UNIFE delegation was present at the annual conference held in June this year in Montréal.

During this five days event which gathered more than one thousand members of the American
rail area, we had several occasions to focus on IRIS. First, Philippe Citroën, UNIFE Director-General and Bernard Kaufmann, IRIS General Manager presented the updated status in the frame of the Rolling Stock Engineering Committee. Later on during the Standard, Research & Innovation session, a broad presentation was made by Mr. Kaufmann to explain the triggers, targets and achievements.

The APTA conference gave the occasion to IMC to highlight IRIS certification in order to make it more known in Americas and to work in developing the implementation of the scheme there. This conference brought an opportunity to discuss with the APTA Management team as well, about further development in the Americas.

8 years after IRIS’ creation, IMC (IRIS Management
Centre) is pleased to announce the award of the 1000th IRIS certificate.
This is a significant milestone for the IRIS certification. With 1000 companies
now having undergone the IRIS certification process worldwide, the standard has
become an international seal of quality, increasingly recognised by rail operators
and producers alike.

“Traffic volumes are increasing all the time, so the railway sector is
becoming more and more important worldwide. Rail transport has to be made
faster, safer, and more comfortable both today and in the future. And to
fulfill these increasingly high customer demands at all times, we need reliable
and innovative technology.

In order to safeguard the production of this
technology, business partners such as Siemens, Alstom, Bombardier, and
Schaeffler agree on uniform quality assurance standards. The IRIS standard
allows the safeguarding, continuous further development, and monitoring of the
management and production systems to take place.

Schaeffler itself, a global automotive and industrial
supplier with around 79,000 employees, holds the IRIS certification at 4 of its
locations. TÜV SÜD, a certification body commissioned by the UNIFE, monitors
the adherence to this standard by companies including Schaeffler, and
particularly at Schaeffler's plant in Brasov (Romania), where special
cylindrical roller bearings for railway applications are manufactured.

The Brasov location successfully passed the initial
certification in January this year, and after closing several corrective
actions got officially the 1000th IRIS certificate. The certificate
was presented on Thursday, June 12, 2014 at the offices of TÜV SÜD Management
Service GmbH in Munich. This success was made possible by targeted efforts at
the location and the cross-plant cooperation between Brasov, the company’s
headquarters in Herzogenaurach, and its Railway Sector Management in
Schweinfurt.”

After being 8 years in application, we could celebrate recently the 1000th IRIS certificate which let us step in a new dimensions...

It was also the time to launch a new language in electronic version, the Polish one, which is expected by the local industry to help them for a quicker development of the Quality systems in Poland.

IMC is pleased to publish the 5th edition of the Rail Quality Journal.
This issue is dedicated to the UK market in the frame of the UNIFE General Assembly held in London last week.
In the newsletter, you will find articles from Nedtrain, Bombardier, Bureau Veritas along with the standard topics.
We are sure that this new edition will help you to complete your Quality knowledge linked to the IRIS scheme; in case of questions or specific interest, do not hesitate to contact us at info@iris-rail.org.

The 5th newsletter is as usual available in printed version at the UNIFE office or can be downloaded on the IRIS Portal: www.iris-rail.org--> download area on the FOOTER of the homepage. Enjoy this new issue!

On February 4th, 2014, was held an IRIS Seminar in Madrid. Organised by MAFEX, Spanish Railway Association, and Cetren, this seminar gathered around 25 representatives of the local rail companies.
Currently 40 companies have been awarded with the IRIS certificate and three others are in a preparation phase.
The seminar was opened by Fernando Prieto, MAFEX International Trade Advisor, who welcomed the participants, introduced the activities of MAFEX and the agenda of the day. Angela de Heymer, IRIS Technical Manager, presented the IRIS status, the last and current evolutions and the quality approach promoted by IRIS. She highlighted the important commitments signed by the UNIFE Presiding Board and also explained the progress of several topical working groups (problem solving, special processes, …).Javier Fuentes, Quality Manager – CAF and IRIS Steering Committee member, focused on the evolutions in the rail sector: organizations, standards and as result IRIS. He pointed out the benefits of IRIS implementation from the System Integrator point of view and the application of the UNIFE commitment for the supply chain and the respective consequences for the suppliers for not compliance.Lorena Gómez, Quality Manager – Kelox, rail company IRIS certified since 2011, shared the experience by the IRIS implementation and the following years. She pointed out the IRIS benefits during the daily project work and the communication within the company. Being exposed still to frequent customer audits, by having IRIS, she is more confidence in the results and the company processes, which is also perceived by the customers.
At the end of the seminar the participants had the opportunity to ask questions and shared their opinions with the speakers.

MAFEX, Spanish Railway Association is organizing a seminar on IRIS Certification on February, 4th 2014 in Madrid, Spain.
IRIS will be represented by Mrs. Angela de Heymer, IRIS Technical Manager and Javier Fuentes, IRIS Steering Committee Member and Responsible for Quality Management Systems, CAF. The IRIS seminar will consist on an update of the IRIS status, the way forward and sharing the experience and benefits of IRIS.

We are pleased to present you the IRIS Communication Survey, giving the main results of the questionnaire “Your assessment on IRIS Communication” sent last summer to all IRIS stakeholders, on July 22nd 2013. 387 people have filled in the questionnaire, whether more than 20% of IRIS stakeholders. IRIS Management Centre (IMC) warmly thanks all the people having taken the time to answer this questionnaire.
We retain from this survey a general satisfaction from the stakeholders of IRIS communication. However, all further comments, suggestions or critics made about IRIS communication tools and materials will help IMC to improve its global IRIS communication strategy.
Enjoy the reading of this survey and do not hesitate to contact us for any comments or question.

On January 21st, 2014, was held a conference called “New approaches to quality standards in the railway industry” in Kiev. Organised by the ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine, this conference gathered 50 heads of the local rail industry companies. The conference was opened by the Infrastructure deputy minister Vladimir Kornienko, who welcomed the push to improve both the organization of the companies and the Quality of the products.
The conference was conducted by Nikolay Gorbakha, Director of the transport safety department within the Infrastructure ministry. He insisted that Quality shall also enhance safety in the rail sector. The close cooperation with the Russian rail sector as well as the specificities of the Ukrainian were mentioned.Bernard Kaufmann, IRIS General Manager, presented the IRIS status, the last & current evolutions and the quality approach promoted by IRIS. Following the presentation, a discussion was initiated on the need of recognition from the authorities based on the international standards and the local economic area market needs. Further talks will have to be organised to set the necessary steps.
Mr. Roman Mytsko, Director of Dniepropetrovsk Certification Authority of Railway Transport (DOSZT), pointed out the responsibility of each party for the success of the IRIS scheme in Ukraine.
As co-organiser of the conference, TÜV Sud, represented by Mr. Alexander Rathiens, IRIS Compliance Manager and Mr. Michael Levitzkij, CEO of TMS, the local partner of TÜV Sud and former IRIS auditor, presented their approach on IRIS, on an internal organization point of view followed by the focus to be put on important elements of IRIS.
Finally, several guests speakers analysed other aspects of the implementation of IRIS.

We are pleased to present you the 4thedition of the Rail Quality Journal.
This new issue respects the format of the previous ones so you could find the famous sections IRIS News, Welcome on Board, From the Mailbag, Employee Profile, Quick Introduction and Tasty Figures.
With 20 pages in total, this news issue of the newsletter contains many new topics. First of all, for the second time, IMC has decided to dedicate a page to a company expressing its experience with IRIS at a daily business. In this 4th issue, the word has been given to Harald Kilian, Sales Manager and Hans-Joachim Kruss, Head of Quality Management, at Bode Kassel.
Furthermore, for the first time, this issue proposes the following sections: How IRIS gets new members, with the view of Jürgen Krista, Global Quality Manager at Amphenol, on IRIS; Certification Body’s point of view, by Cristina Bianchi, from RINA; Focus on Office & Witness Audit; Auditor training; Commitment for the supply chain; Focus on IMC Communication Study; IRIS products and IRIS Dictionary.
IMC is sure that this new edition fits to your expectation and welcomes any contribution to a next issue, making a testimony or being interviewed for one of our sections; if you’re interested do not hesitate to contact us at info@iris-rail.org.
The 4th newsletter is as usual available in printed version at the UNIFE office or can be downloaded on the IRIS Portal: www.iris-rail.org --> download area on the FOOTER of the homepage. Enjoy this new issue!

The yearly DQS Forum IRIS took place on November 7th, 2013 in Munich at DB Systemtechnik GmbH.
The Forum gathered around 30 attendees from different rail companies, who saw different presentations and could discuss and exchange about IRIS and safety requirements.

Hans Jahn, DQS – Product Manager, Rail and Transportation and moderator of the Forum, explained the key requirements from the current IRIS version and the link to the coming ISO 9001 version.

Angela de Heymer, IRIS Technical Manager, presented the last information from IRIS and gave an update on the important commitments signed by the UNIFE Presiding Board and also explained the progress of several topical working groups (problem solving, special processes, …).

Dr. Thomas Erpenbeck, Head of Homologation Management, test centre and expert organization of the hosting site, gave an overview on the legal requirements for products approval and also the requirements for operation and homologation. In the frame of the Forum, the 100th IRIS Certificate issued by DQS was handed over to the company Nomad Digital GmbH.

Mr. Bernd Opitz, Quality Manager, received the IRIS Certificate and reported about his experience over the last months and confirmed that the IRIS Certificate requirement came originally from a system integrator, in order for the company to be maintained in its supplier panel.
Finally, the participants have the opportunity to visit the DB Systemtechnik GmbH facilities.

As an introduction to the Tracko fair held this week at Gdansk Exhibition Center, SIRTS, the Polish rail industry association, organized a conference dedicated to the different certifications necessary in the rail sector.
Among product certifications and sub-systems certifications linked to European directives, it was the time to make a status on the development of IRIS in Poland.

Currently 43 companies have been awarded with the IRIS certificate and 10 others are in a preparation phase. One of the major issue for the further development is linked to the language.

Therefore, SIRTS and UNIFE worked jointly to finalize an official IRIS Rev 02.1 version of the booklet in polish. Bernard Kaufmann, IRIS General Manager, was proud to present the finalized document and announced the availability for purchase at the official distributors very soon. This is a clear incentive for the local industry to improve its efficiency and highlight the commitment to deserve the expected Quality to its customers.
The conference gathered ~70 attendees who saw the presentation showing the current status of all activities related to IRIS. Marek Pawlik,from the Institute Kolejnictwa, gave some hints to the audience how to implement the requirements in the organizations.

During the Expo 1520 in Moscow, the IMC (IRIS Management Centre) jointly with the NP-UIRE (Russian Union of Industries of Railway Equipment), organized an IRIS Advisory Board dedicated to a deep analysis on the first achievements with IRIS in the region.

Valentin Gapanovich, NP-UIRE Chairman introduced the meeting by confirming the main achievements and by highlighting some important aspects of the IRIS certification in Russia.

He stressed that:

•IRIS must remain a demanding and rigorous Standard,

•IRIS Implementation is a guarantee of being able to deliver good quality products,

•In the selection process, a preference has to be given to IRIS certified suppliers,

•Major suppliers will have to be IRIS certified by 2015 (confirmation of a previous statement).

The workshop was composed by three testimonies:

•Oleg Senkovskyi, First deputy head of the Centre for technical audit at RZD, presented the first feedbacks from the operators view,

•Daria Panteleeva, Deputy Head of Business Development at Zeldorremmash, showed the main elements implemented in the 12 sites of the company where most are currently certified and shared their challenges during the implementation processes,

•Ekaterina Bochkareva, IRIS Product Manager at Russian Register, shared the experience of their first audits and reinforced the key role of having qualified IRIS auditors with rail experience in the scheme.

A round table discussion between the IAB members highlighted some specific. The participants had the opportunity to exchange experienced on audits and IRIS implementation.

Interesting points were noted as potential improvement for the scheme.

In the frame of the 10th edition of the TRAKO International Railway Fair, SIRT (Association for Rail Transport, Interoperability and Development) is organizing a seminar on Monday 23rd September 2013, from 13:00 – 18:00 in Gdansk, Poland. For more details please see the attached program.

IRIS, represented by Mr. Bernard Kaufmann, IRIS General Manager, will be a central part of the session related to certification of sub-system and products.

TRAKO is the largest and most prestigious rail industry meeting in Poland and one of the largest in Central and Eastern Europe. The Fair takes place every two years.

The 4th edition of the 1520 area fair was held mid of September at the Shcherbinka stage close to the RZD tests track in the suburbs of Moscow.
During this major event for the rail sector of the large gauge zone, it was the time for several highlights around IRIS.?

First, 15 IRIS certificates were handover to the related company heads by the local representative of the Certification Bodies. Valentin Gapanovich, RZD Vice-President and NP-UIRE Chairman and Bernard Kaufmann, IRIS General Manager chaired the ceremony.
In the following conference, a session was dedicated to globalization of rail engineering, where Bernard Kaufmann could present the latest evolution in the scheme as well as show the status and expectation for the local market.?

Finally, he presented the new Russian version of the IRIS Rev 02.1 booklet which will be soon available for the stakeholders.
IRIS is well recognized in this area and the future development looks very positive as the operator RZD is having high expectations in Quality improvements.

One year ago, IRIS was publishing his first newsletter “The Quality Rail Journal” and today, we propose you to discover the third issue. This new issue respects the format of the previous ones so you could find the famous sections IRIS News, Welcome on Board, Customer Profile, From the mailbag and many more, with new facts and information. However, for the first time, this issue contains 4 extra pages. Indeed, the IMC found it important to add new sections as: IRIS at a daily business; Booklet’s electronic version; Focus on Working Groups and an article on the Evolution of the IRIS software platform. Furthermore, we dedicated a Customer Profile on Andreas Ripsam, Managing Director of Dürr Technik GmbH & Co. KG., wherein he reveals his views on IRIS benefits.Moreover, for our new section IRIS at a daily business, Reinhard Auer-Knöbl from Siemens AG, gives his opinion on quality management and of the essential role of IRIS in it.Everyone who would like to contribute to our next newsletter, make a testimony or being interviewed for our Customer Profile on any other new section, is welcome and should contact us at info@iris-rail.org.Enjoy this new issue!

IRIS has made deep changes in its IT system.The functionalities of the IRIS Portal are unchanged unless that you have now to dial +32 2 880 79 49 from Monday to Friday from 9:00 to 17:30 (CET) to reach the support helpdesk.We hope that you will continue to enjoy visiting us.

On April 10th, 2013, IMC organized a working session dedicated to the special processes. With this occasion, the IRIS General Manager, Bernard Kaufmann has presented the current situation in the rail sector linked especially to the IRIS requirements.

Our guest, the General Director of PRI, Mr. Joe Pinto presented to the UNIFE interested parties on how the NADCAP (the National Aerospace and Defense Contractors Accreditation Program)initiative works, what they have achieved since 20 years in the Aerospace industry and recently with GE Transportation, presenting the benefits of an Industry Managed Program in special processes for the rail industry. The NADCAP initiative is commonly assessed as a high level tool on this subject deployed in mature organizations.
The outputs of this session will be analyzed in the frame of the IRIS Working groups to elaborate potential further steps to secure this important aspect of the companies’ processes.

End of March 2013, took place in Moscow, the 7th Awareness session on IRIS dedicated to the Quality Directors of the NP-UIRE association members.
Bernard Kaufmann, IRIS General Manager gave the keys for a sustainable organization to 12 specialists who can now develop the scheme internally and strive for an IRIS certification.

After the session, he could measure the progress since the first one in 2009, during an award ceremony organized at the headquarter of JSC Zeldorremmash on March 28th, 2013. This company has 10 plants specialized in locomotive maintenance and has just achieved the first IRIS Certification in its Rostov-on-Don plant. In presence of several representatives of the assessing certification body, AFNOR Certification, he handover the seal of conformity of the rail sector Quality label to the general director of the company.
He stressed on the targets of IRIS and abet the company to confirm the success throughout the visible improvement of the product quality and the customer satisfaction. Representatives of RZD, the Russian operator, confirmed these expectations and pushed Zeldorremmash to continue the deployment in its other plants to reach the objectives set by the top management of RZD.

The IRIS Management Centre has held the first official IRIS Auditor Training in 2013. The full training and examination sessions have been held from Tuesday 5th to Friday 8th of March 2013 in Brussels.
All the trainees have successfully passed the steps which shows the competence of the candidates both in rail industry and management system experience.
According the forecasts of development this year, more auditors will be needed, therefore other IRIS Auditor Trainings will be held end of June and October 2013.
IMC invests a lot of energy into the development of the skills of the assessors. It is a key element for the confidence and the recognition of IRIS in the rail sector.

Philippe Citröen (UNIFE Director General), Hubert de
Blay (IRIS Chairman) and Bernard Kaufmann (IRIS General Manager) welcomed the
Industry and Operators Quality Directors to an IRIS Advisory Board (IAB)
dedicated on the future of IRIS. Moreover a stronger involvement of the IAB
members in IRIS was discussed.

As an example, Hans van Mulekom (NedTrain) shared with
the audience, their internal approach of the integration of the IRIS in their
supplier qualification process as well as the internal experience by the
application of the IRIS requirements in a maintenance site.

After a 2008 fair focused on discovery, 2010 dedicated to the development, this edition of InnoTrans was the time of exchange of experience and the starting point of next steps.

A lot of current stakeholders of IRIS – auditors, certified companies, Certification Bodies and operators – passed by our stand to discuss about status, achievements, last changes and improvement areas.

On another hand, many newcomers in the rail business needed advice, ideas and took our factsheets in order to analyze furthermore the future implementation of IRIS.
Also this year, we organized daily discussion sessions.

During the first session, Philippe Citroën, Director-General of UNIFE, Hubert de Blay, IRIS Chairman and Bernard Kaufmann IRIS General Manager highlighted the status and the challenges of IRIS as well as the new electronic versions of the IRIS standard: IRIS Revision 02.1.

On Wednesday, Hubert de Blay and Angela de Heymer, IRIS Technical Manager presented the perspectives of IRIS for the industry in presence of an attentive and numerous audience.

Finally, during the Thursday session, Bernard Kaufmann advocated the necessity of a high Quality level in the rail sector and George Jacob from BFG shared their experience in the IRIS development of an internationally established company.

The IRIS Management Centre distributed at the occasion of the Berlin event its 2ndedition? of the Quality Journal as well as an updated version of the IRIS factsheets.

Indeed, InnoTrans 2012 was an excellent time for IRIS and it was obviously visible, as a huge amount of certified companies? present at the fair, showed proudly the IRIS logo at their stand.

We look forward consolidating our fruitful contacts and are committed into the continuous improvement of the rail sector.

The worldwide rail event in Berlin was the momentum of an important evolution in the IRIS scheme. As it was highlighted by Philippe Citroën, Director-General of UNIFE, “a new step forward has been achieved today”. Hubert de Blay, IRIS Chairman, confirmed the importance of the IRIS target: improve the Quality in the rail sector with strong tools. As it was explained by Bernard Kaufmann, IRIS General Manager, the new IRIS Revision 02.1 includes all published amendments and also the ISO 9001 requirements which better fulfill the needs of the rail sector companies. This standard will be distributed exclusively in electronic version from October 1st, 2012 on. The versions in English, French and Italian languages will be soon followed by German, Russian and Polish.

The IRIS Management Centre cordially invites all interested parties to attend the following
IRIS presentations/discussions during InnoTrans 2012, at the UNIFE stand in Hall 4.2, Stand 103 from 18-21 September in Berlin, Germany:

During the UIC Highspeed Congress 2012, which took place in Philadelphia (PA) USA, UNIFE/IRIS has organized an IRIS round table discussion among local stakeholders.

Several presentations were made by Dan Liou for AFNOR (CB), Gary St Onge for Knorr-Brakes and Bruce Thomas for Wabtec.

Philippe Citroën UNIFE Director-General introduced the discussions and Bernard Kaufmann IRIS General Manager presented the targets and status of the rail sector scheme.

More and more companies are attracted by the IRIS Certification in this area and it was the opportunity to share the evolution with companies who stepped in for a while.
The presentations are attached below.

From July 11th to 13th, 2012, the Rail World will meet in Philadelphia, PA, USA at the occasion of UIC Highspeed 2012 which combine a congress and a trade show.

UNIFE and IRIS will be present at this major event. We will welcome you at our booth at the Pennsylvania Convention Center (n° 749), to discuss about the development and implementation of IRIS.
Moreover, you’re invited on July 12th from 11am on, to attend to an IRIS round table discussion at our booth. You will be able to share experiences and targets with already certified companies and participate in the networking discussions.

On 24th of May an IRIS Seminar „Practice certification and operation of IRIS” took place in Katowice, Poland. The Seminar was organized by Department of Railway Engineering, Silesian University of Technology (SUT) and IMQ Certification Body Rep. Poland, gathering around 50 participants including specialist from the major railway companies in Poland, representatives of the Railway Transport Office in Poland and part of the IRIS Group management represented by Giuseppe Greco, IRIS Senior Manager.

After the welcome speech of Adam Manka, SUT, and Piotr Goldzinski, IMQ CSQ Rep. Poland, Giuseppe Greco presented the current state of implementation and operation of the IRIS standard in Europe and worldwide.
During the discussion part of the seminar attendees raised many questions concerning IRIS requirements and got detailed answers from Giuseppe Greco.

Piotr Goldzinski, IMQ/CSQ Rep. Poland, presented differences standing out IRIS to ISO 9001 and a comparison of development path of ISO TS 16949 and AS 9100 to the current development of the IRIS standard.

The last panelist, Adam Manka, SUT, presented practical approach to the functioning of the RAMS/LCC standard IRIS as well as theory and practice of risk analysis in the railway industry.

During seminar it was presented and passed officially to Giuseppe Greco a polish translation of the IRIS Standard made by Department of Railway Engineering.

The seminar was closed with joint proposal raised to the IRIS group about the extension of the IRIS requirements to the rail infrastructure products.

Following the official launch of the IRIS scheme during the conference end of January 2012, the Mouvement Québecois de la Qualité (MQQ) organized a first session for quality managers of the province in Montréal on June 6th to 8th.

This session was held in French language, gathered 10 trainees and was performed by Bernard Kaufmann, IRIS General Manager.
This intensive course permit to set clearly the frame of IRIS, the input brought by the rail standard as well as the targeted outputs.

Other sessions will be needed to consistently develop the scheme in Canada and North America.

This major event always organized in Sochi end of May, gave this year the opportunity to highlight the competence of UNIFE and IRIS.

First, during the official signature session, two documents were signed by Mr. Valentin Gapanovitch, Vice-president of Russian Railways: a MoU with Mr. Henri Poupart-Lafarge, chairman of the UNIFE Presiding Board about further cooperation in technical and standardization fields, and a protocol with Mr. Bernard Kaufmann, IRIS General Manager, about the upgrade of the translation of the IRIS booklet with the objective to become an official language.

Second, during specialized sessions in the conference, we could present UNIFE and IRIS to this huge market linked to the 1520 gauge.
Finally, the large audience present in Sochi permitted an intensive networking.

From May 28th to 30th, NP-UIRE, the Russian rail association gathered in the Rizhskaya training centre in Moscow, 19 specialists for a new session of IRIS awareness performed by Bernard Kaufmann, IRIS General Manager.

The program of sessions, extended in 2011 by signing a supplemental agreement with NP-UIRE, is the key pillar for the implementation of the rail scheme in the local industry. A next session is planned by end of the year.

On May 24th and 25th, took place the seminar organized by Russian Register at the RZD – Russian railways technical office in St Petersburg. The event gathered around 100 attendees listening to the messages spread by the speakers. On the first day, Valentin Gapanovitch, Vice-president of RZD and Arkady Vladimirtsev, General Director of Russian Register opened the seminar by focusing on their respective roles:
While Russian Register will have to confirm the level reached by the companies in their quality organisation, RZD stressed the need of an efficient implementation of IRIS within the industry. By celebrating the 175 anniversary of the Russian operator, Mr. Gapanovitch confirmed the good relationship with UNIFE and IRIS in particular. Thus, first improvements are perceived, he said.

Sergei Palkin, Vice-president of the Russian Association NP-UIRE, reminded that IRIS promotes the best practices of the rail sector. Therefore, he urged the companies to start their actions towards the IRIS certification.

Bernard Kaufmann, IRIS General Manager, presented the advantages for companies in applying the IRIS requirements. He showed also the current achievements and gave some hints to start the scheme.

The second part of the seminar was focused on the technical implementation, complementarity with other schemes and reporting of outputs already measured in several fields.

It is absolutely evident that the Russian industry has already taken the train for improvements backed by their customers and the associations.

From now on, The Quality Rail Journal will be published every 3 months and will touch upon many interesting topics. It is not only IRIS and quality news that will be addressed in this newsletter, the scope of this newsletter is very wide; ranging from interviews with interesting people, to a welcome to our new customers, customer testimonials, impressive railway figures, and more.

In particular, this very first edition contains some very interesting articles concerning many influential people in the rail sector. The foreword is presented to you by Mr Philippe Citroën – Director General of UNIFE, the European Rail Industry, who will present his views on IRIS and quality management. The IRIS Management Centre will be shortly introduced to you, in order to get to know the people who manage the quality scheme a little better.

Furthermore, we conducted an interview with Mr Philippe Crauste, Vice President of Quality at Bombardier (and a former employee of Airbus), who reveals his views on quality management in the rail sector.

Moreover, the journal contains a detailed employee profile of Mr Bernard Kaufmann – IRIS General Manager, in which he shares his views on the rail sector in general and its quality issues in particular.

Besides the articles concerning these interesting people and their views on quality within the rail sector, the newsletter contains many more topics. IRIS welcomes everyone who would like to read about a wide range of topics concerning IRIS in specific and rail quality in general to have a look in The Quality Rail Journal.

The newsletter has been digitally distributed to stakeholders, is located in printed versions in the UNIFE office and can be found on the IRIS Portal, in the download area:

A few days ago, we had the pleasure to welcome a new member in our team: Kujtesa HAJREDINI.

We will let her introduce herself:
“ I am very grateful for this opportunity and I will try to contribute as good as possible in the development of IRIS in regard to my educational background and working experience.”

We are sure that she will help us to continue the development of IRIS and to be dedicated to all stakeholders.

Meanwhile, we would like to warmly thank Nevena Petrova for the almost five years spent with us and wish her all the best for her new projects.

An international seminar „ Practice certification and operation of IRIS
standard in Poland and Europe” is organized by Silesian University of
Technology in cooperation with IMQ Certification Body on 24th of May in
Katowice, Poland.

Vice President of the Railway transport Office, IRIS Management Centre,
Management Systems, Inspection and ICT Security – BU Director & CSQ Director,
Head of Department of Railway Engineering, Transport Faculty of the Silesian
University of Technology, as well as the representatives of the Polish rail
industry organizations will take part at the seminar.

The aim of the seminar is to promote the implementation and certification
of the IRIS standard as well presenting the significant aspects of the IRIS scheme.

An international conference “Improvement of quality and safety of products supplied for railway industry needs. Innovation standard for railway industry – IRIS” is organized by Russian Register on 24th and 25th of May in St. Petersburg, Russia.

The representatives of national and regional authorities, IRIS Management Centre, representatives of Russian Railways, Kazakh Railways, Ukraine Railways, Belorus Railways, as well as the representatives of Russia and CIS countries rail industry organizations will take part and make a report at the International Conference.

The aim of the conference is to provide common understanding for the the common approach to the design and development of innovational management methods for quality and safety improvement of the products supplied for Railway Industry, to exchange approaches on the management issues of the railway suppliers based on the IRIS scheme and practical implementation of Business Management Systems in Russian railway engineering enterprises.

On January 31st, 2012, the “Mouvement Québécois de la Qualité” (MQQ), on behalf of the Quebec Ministry of Economic Development, Innovation and Exportation gathered around one hundred representatives of the rail sector at the first IRIS conference in Boucherville close to Montreal.

After the welcome speech of Jacques La Rue, Regional Director of Montérégie, and the introduction done by Jean-Marc Sauvé, Deputy Minister, Hubert de Blay, IRIS Chairman, presented the history, targets and the current status of IRIS.

A first focus was then made on the basics of IRIS by Bernard Kaufmann, IRIS General Manager, followed by the confirmation of the strategies in internal development and procurement policies of the representatives of Bombardier Transportation – Peter Boels and Alstom Transport – Hubert de Blay.

The central part of the conference was centered on a round table discussion moderated by Claude Desbiens with:

The panelist testified mainly about their IRIS implementation experiences and positive feedbacks of certified companies. During a Q/A session, the attendees raised many questions and got detailed answers from the panelists.

In the afternoon, Bernard Kaufmann, explained the IRIS certification process and its specificities, followed by the director of BNQ who presented the certification body tasks for AFNOR certification group.

The last part was dedicated to the next steps and particularly the awareness & training schemes which will be proposed by the MQQ from March on.

The event was closed with last questions and some networking discussions among all participants.

IRIS and MQQ will now work closely for the development of the scheme in this area in order to give the opportunity to the companies to join the list of certified companies soon.

The new generation of the IRIS Audit-tool brings the evolution of this software to the next level, by introducing some long-awaited features developed specifically for companies: and much more.

Some of the most relevant changes are:

- A new but familiar interface;- A section AUDIT PLAN, to schedule and monitor the activities of the audit (internal and 3rd party);- A section LONG TERM PLANNING to manage internal audits in a 3 years audit cycle;- New functions in the questionnaire (new columns, improved visibility of maturity levels, ...);- Executive report: a report taylor made for the top level management;- ...

On January 31st, 2012, the Quebec Society of Quality (MQQ) and the Quebec Ministry for economic development organize a conference centered on IRIS. The event is located in Boucherville, close to Montréal and will be held in French language. This will be the opportunity to launch officially the implementation of the rail standard in a new area and continent. IMC and other european stakeholders will be present in Montreal.

End of October, the IAQG (International Aerospace Quality Group)annual meetings took place in Bordeaux. Bernard Kaufmann, IRIS General Manager, was invited to attend the 30th Council meeting and presented briefly the rail scheme to the 120 delegates from the Aerospace Industry.Since the launch of IRIS, we are working closely togetherand benchmarking the evolutions of each industry in order to adapt the requirements of our standards to the most accurate for the related supply chain.Another guest of the council, Dr Lohl from the European Aerospace Safety Agency highlighted the fact of a decisive reduction of the fatal accidents in Europe in the last years and therefore confirmed the members the close link between Quality and Safety: all efforts done in the improvement of the Quality of the systems and the products enhance the safety of the operation!During the day, the status of each IAQG working group was given and next targets set.Xavier Sahut d’Izarn from Safran was elected new President of the IAQG. He thanked all participants for the contribution and promised to continue to push the Aerospace industry in the way of continuous improvement throughout the established AS 9100 system.These efforts and achievements are seen as a model for the rail sector and therefore we will continue to push IRIS to get the same kind of improvements.

After visiting AnsaldoBreda in 2010, Knorr-Bremse in Munich hosted the next benchmarking for the members of the Russian rail association NP-UIRE .

This happened mid of October and 22 representatives of Russian companies discovered how Knorr-Bremse has implemented the IRIS requirements in its organization.After the introduction focusing on the targets and reason to go for an IRIS certification, Bernard Kaufmann, IRIS General Manager, presented several specificities of the rail sector standard which are key to achieve customer requirements. Knorr-Bremse also showed the application in the plant of these aspects,highlighting the fact that a good preparation and management is the solution for success.

The visitors enjoyed this working session as it was expressed by Sergei Palkin, Vice-president of the association and deputy director of RZD, the Russian rail operator.

On September 27th & 28th, the 13th "Quality management, innovations, management systems certification” conference organized by Russian Register took place in Almaty (Kazakhstan).

Bernard Kaufmann, the IRIS General Manager, presented the IRIS scheme developed by the rail sector, amongst generic discussions around quality in the industries including examples from petroleum industry. The first day of the conference gathered around 250 people coming also from other CIS states.

The second day was dedicated to more detailed presentations where the challenges and the targets of the IRIS initiative were discussed.

Kazakhstan has already started several rail projects and the first metro line will be unveiled in Almaty during next December.

The IRIS certification, key to providing innovative and reliable rail products, took another important step in becoming the universal rail quality standard by awarding its 600th certificatein early May 2011.

With 600 companies now having completed the IRIS certification process worldwide, the standard has become an international seal of quality recognised by rail operators and producers alike.

The 59th World Congress and Exhibition of the International Association of Public Transport (UITP) hosted by Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) was held in Dubai from April 10th to April 14th, 2011.

The first UITP World Congress and Exhibition held in the MENA Region was attended by 2,000 delegates coming from 80 countries. The exhibition (252 exhibitors from 37 countries, 30,000 m2) was visited by 9,700 visitors. Hubert de Blay, the IRIS Steering Committee and UITP Industry Steering Committee Chairman gave the answer to the question “How IRIS helps the supply chain” during his slot on the 3rd day of the Congress.In his presentation he responded to the requests of the operators to improve the quality and the equipment manufacturers’ demand to rationalize the quantity of audits and requirements by explaining why IRIS is the answer. He presented the scheme outlining the main differences towards ISO and drew the attention of the participants to the benefits IRIS can bring. He stressed on the reduction of the costs together with the improved product quality and supply chain efficiency which IRIS carries. The limited but more valuable number of audits, the simplification of the suppliers’ evaluation and approval, together with the easy access to the suppliers’ accurate and reliable data are only a few of the advantages which the IRIS certified companies enjoy. The IRIS Chairman gave a quick overview of the status of IRIS after 5 years of existence and concluded that quality and continuous improvement is mandatory in the rail sector and IRIS is the must to achieve it.

On 31 March 2011, a meeting of the IRIS Advisory Board took place in Moscow where Senior Vice-President of Russian Railways Valentin Gapanovich participated as a guest. He welcomed the support of IRIS in the RZD improvement program of the rail industry. The ISO Chairman, in his welcoming letter, confirms that the practical application of the requirements of IRIS promotes a higher quality and is a key success factor in the rail industry, designed for effective business management. He ensured that mastering the requirements of IRIS will provide a deep modernization of management to meet the needs of the Russian economy in railway transportation by creating a new rail technology based on innovative approaches and recognized methods of business management.

The Advisory Board Meeting focused on the outcome of the witness audit campaign 2010, as well as on the further development of IRIS.

Third Conference "IRIS - Quality, Innovation and Modernisation" was held at the Renaissance Hotel in Moscow on 1 April 2011.

The event was organized by Russia’s non-commercial Association of Railway Equipment Manufacturers, with support from Russian Railways, Siemens, the Union of Russian Engineering Companies and IRIS Management Centre.

The conference was attended by over 200 people from 130 companies and organizations, including representatives from Russian Railways, Russia’s legislative and executive authorities and the IRIS Advisory Board members, as well as the heads of Russian and foreign railway engineering companies and representatives of the scientific and technical community.

During the conference the need to meet the requirements of the IRIS standard using accepted business management methods was discussed.
Russian Railways has approved and is now implementing new policy guidelines in the strategic management of the quality of products used by the Company. The following are a set deadlines for bringing the company’s business management systems into compliance with IRIS:

• 2010-2011 - action plans must be drawn up in cooperation with manufacturers to implement IRIS standards at engineering companies, • 2012-2014 - switching to IRIS standards and the main quality tools, • Starting in 2015, Russian Railways plans to complete the strategic management system for product quality and purchase the required railway equipment and components only from companies certified as being in compliance with IRIS.

Russian Railways will also be giving priority to suppliers certified as being in compliance with the IRIS standard when purchasing railway equipment from May 2011.

During the last week of March, the IRIS Management Centre performed an IRIS awareness
training in Moscow under the frame of NP-UIRE, the Russian Association for Rail Industry.
28 specialists, selected amongst the members of the association, attended this 4th
awareness training.
Bernard Kaufmann (IRIS General Manager) and Giuseppe Greco (IRIS Senior Manager)
explained the IRIS system and its requirements, including the latest evolutions of
the Standard, the Advisories and the Corrigendum 1:2010.
This two-and- a- half- day training, done in simultaneous translation, concluded with a self
check questionnaire to allow the participants to assess their understanding.
This action is linked to an agreement with NP-UIRE and RZD, the Russian rail operator,
in order to support the necessary plan to improve the organization of the Russian supply
chain and ultimately the quality of the rail products. Three sessions were already
held in July 2009, November 2009 and March 2010, and more sessions will be organized in future
thanks to the recent confirmation of the collaboration agreement between UNIFE and NP-UIRE.
The Russian market benefits now of a panel of 90 specialists trained who are working in
their companies on the improvement process.
RZD has set a target for their suppliers to be IRIS certified up to 2015.

On April 1st, 2011 at “Rennaisance” hotel in Moscow (Olympiisky prospect 18/1), the 3rd IRIS Conference will be held, organized by NP “UIRE” with the support of Russian Railways (RZD) and the UNION of the Russian manufacturers.It will be the time to face the progress of IRIS in Russia.

Key subjects of the Conference:

- IRIS – new stage in the cooperation between RZD and the local railway companies - IRIS – a tool for quality improvement - IRIS – experience during the implementation of the IRIS requirementsin the Russian railway companies - IRIS – key stages in implementation and practical recommendations.

The Conference will gather officials from the Russian Federation, Head of the Russsian Railways, representatives from the local railway companies as well as the IRIS Advisory Board members.

The IRIS Management Center full heartedly thanks all certified companies that helped making the IRIS presence at InnoTrans 2010 such a great success.

In three presentations at the InnoTrans Speaker’s Corner, the UNIFE stand and in Hall 11.2, the IRIS message was promoted to a large audience at the biggest rail industry fair in the world.
It was a particular pleasure on this occasion to award the IRIS certificate in person to the following companies:

IRIS Certification has been one of the protagonists of InnoTrans 2010.

More than fifty exhibitors proudly presented the IRIS logo, including market leaders such as Bombardier, Siemens, AnsaldoBreda, Knorr-Bremse, Harting and Voith.

The IRIS Management Centre organised an IRIS seminar on Tuesday 21/09, where IRIS Chairman Hubert de Blay and IRIS General Manager Bernard Kaufmann brought the audience up to speed on the aims and achievements of the initiative. The new IRIS Portal was launched and the five latest IRIS certificates were handed over on the same occasion.

Additionally, SUNVIAUTO, a rail seat producing company located in Portugal, was awarded with the 500th IRIS certificate - illumining once more the enormous speed by which IRIS certification is expanding globally.

On Wednesday 22/09 and Thursday 23/09 the IRIS Management Centre organised two further presentations on the UNIFE stand, this time involving testimonies from two IRIS certified companies who have profitably implemented the scheme and are now collecting the benefits: HaslerRail and Dellner Couplers.

They reported about tangible improvements against the cost of non-quality and the cost of warranty (the latter decreased by 50% after the implementation of IRIS) in front of an attentive audience, mostly composed of people who have spotted the IRIS logo in many stands at the fair and now were looking for further information.

The IRIS Management Centre was permanently present with an IRIS dedicated booth at the UNIFE stand, registering a strong increase of interest from InnoTrans visitors, in particular from North America and the Far East.

BRUSSELS, 23 SEPTEMBER 2010 – INNOTRANS 2010 witnessed with many IRIS certified exhibitors a double celebration as the Portuguese rail equipment producer SUNVIAUTO was awarded the 500th IRIS certificate. With the launch of the new IRIS portal, IRIS has taken another important step in its standing as the world’s most recognised rail specific quality certificate.

“The new IRIS portal is an excellent tool for all certified companies and exhaustive information source for companies that are seeking to be certified in the future”, stated Bernard Kaufmann, IRIS General Manager.

“IRIS continues to be a success story, and we are continuing to improve the quality in the rail sector” said Hubert de Blay, IRIS Chairman. “With the new improved portal, we are certain that this success story will be continued.”

After just four years of implementation, 500 companies completed the IRIS certification process worldwide, making IRIS an international seal of quality.

Under www.iris-rail.org you will find an interactive world application showing all certificates and the details of the certified companies. With the new, more user friendly layout you can access key information on the spot. It also contains a new and re-designed shop area for improved usability where you can find the IRIS booklet and the IRIS Audit tool.

The IRIS Management Centre cordially invites all interested parties to attend the IRIS presentations at the InnoTrans 2010 (Berlin, Germany), both at the UNIFE stand in Hall 4.2, Stand 120 and at the "Speaker's Corner" in Hall 14.2 - all from 21-24 September in Berlin:

On July 27th, 2010, RASTIA, the Bulgarian association member of UNIFE organizeda seminar dedicated to IRIS and they were glad to welcome around 30 people.

Bernard Kaufmann, the IRIS General Manager made a general presentation on the scheme.

He presented the objectives, the current situation, involvement of stakeholders, the Rev.02 improvements and the next steps of the IRIS scheme.

Questions linked to the mandatory application of IRIS by the companies as well as the advantage of application of IRIS at tier 2 level were raised.

In
separate meetings, Mr. Kaufmann and Mr. Dourchev, RASTIA General
Manager had the opportunity to meet also Deputy Director-General of the
State Enterprise National Railway Infrastructure Company - Mr. Krumov
and the Chairman of the Transport, Information Technologies and
Communications Committee – Mr. Valkov where the possibility of
implementing the IRIS requirements in the Bulgarian companies was
discussed.

On 28th and 29th of July an IRIS Conference “New approach in quality standards in the
strategy development of the railway companies” took place in Moscow.
Organized by NP UIRE, it gathered more than 100 participants including
specialists from the main railway companies in Russia, specialists from
the Russian railway operator RZD and part of the management of the IRIS
group in the face of the IRIS Chairman – Mr. de Blay and the IRIS
General Manager – Mr. Kaufmann.

The
conference was a stage of exchanging opinions and questions about the
implementation of the IRIS requirements in the Russian companies between
the IRIS management, IRIS auditors from one side and RZD with the
Vice-President of RZD and President of NP UIRE – Mr. Gapanovich, members
of the Association, representatives of private railway companies on the
other.

Opinions
on the practical implementation of the IRIS requirements on the first
Russian certified company were given and the possibilities for the
future certification of other Russian railway companies were explained.

The
IRIS management made aware the audience of the history of IRIS, the
current status, and the problems which may apply in the implementation
of IRIS. Especially Mr. Kaufmann highlighted the most important
processes to be implemented in order to assure sustainable improvements.

Over
the participants’ opinion of the Conference, IRIS will allow the
railway companies to raise their business effectiveness, to improve the
quality of their products, to change the current system of multiple
audits. The IRIS scheme would be a powerful factor to increase the
competitiveness of the Russian railway companies on the nowadays market.

IMC has just launched the IRIS Rev. 02 / Corrigendum 1:2010 which informs about corrections in the IRIS Rev.02 booklets.

This corrigendum contains corrections for the following languages:

- English- French- German- Italian

These corrections are superseding the current version in the areas and clauses where an error occurred.

To get the Corrigendum, you shall go to the download area on the IRIS Portal, no login is required. You can download the PDF document free of charge.

Please note that the Corrigendum will only be available in electronic form.

This Corrigendum is the result of the feedbacks collected in the past months throughout IRIS working groups, and the online feedback system which allows everybody to inform about errors and mistakes. This is a part of the continual improvement system placed within IRIS. We encourage our customers to continue using this tool, available in the IRIS Portal under “send feedback” (login is required) and therefore to contribute to the excellence level of the IRIS standard.

On May 11th, 2010, ABB and CC-Rail organized an IRIS Experience sharing session for Swiss companies in the ABB’s IRIS certified site of Lenzburg.Andreas Heinzmann CEO of CC-Rail presented some potential benefits reachable with an accurate IRIS Rev.02 implementation.Bernard Kaufmann, IRIS General Manager, presented the current status of the scheme and focused on the targets for the companies and the next steps for IRIS.

All other speakers shared their experiences in implementing the IRIS processes in their organizations:

• Susanne Schaub from CFF/SBB/FFS about the steps towards Excellence,• Lorenz Trachsel from Railtec Systems and André Hasler from CC-Rail about the preparation for a Rev.02 certification,• Antje Schmidt from ABB about the necessary steps to move from IRIS Rev. 00 to IRIS Rev. 02,• Markus Matter from EAO and Kay Jürgensen from TUV Nord about the synergies between IRIS and a TSI product certification,• Finally Peter Stauffer CEO of Hasler Rail explained how the company implemented a measurement system to capture all the Costs of Non-Quality with the experience of four years IRIS implementation.

After a visit of the new ABB semi-conductors plant, another part of the day was spent on small workshops, dedicated to following topics linked to IRIS: KPIs, RAMs and IRIS processes.

This first session gathered 25 registrations and a decision for a second session in 2011 was taken.

During the discussions, it became obvious that:• IRIS is used and accepted as a tool for continual improvement in the Swiss Rail industry as well as on operator level,• IRIS sets high level requirements and herewith increases the sector standards,• IRIS becomes more and more the state of art,• Synergies exists between IRIS system certification and product certifications.

Some interesting hints for improvement of the IRIS standard itself were given as well.

Recently, the IRIS Management Centre performed an IRIS awareness training in Moscow under the frame of NP-UIRE, the Russian Association for Rail Industry. 20 specialists, selected amongst the members of the association, attended this 3rd awareness training.

Bernard Kaufmann, IRIS General Manager, explained the IRIS system and its requirements.

The new Rev. 02 Russian booklet translation was presented during the session. This two- and- a- half- day training, done in simultaneous translation, concluded with a self check questionnaire to allow the participants to assess their understanding.

This action is linked to an agreement with NP-UIRE and RZD, the Russian rail operator, in order to support the necessary plan to improve the organization of the Russian supply chain and ultimately the quality of the rail products. Two other sessions were already held in July and November 2009. The Russian market benefits now of a panel of 60 specialists trained who are working in their companies on the improvement process.

RZD has set a target for their suppliers to be IRIS certified up to 2015.

The two IRIS seminars organized by DEKRA Certification in Cologne on February 25th and Nurnberg on March 11th,gathered 50 attendees.

Several presentations overflew the Quality field of the rail sector.A lot of questions were raised to all speakers which showed the need of the seminars.Some private operators participated in the sessions and, through questions, emphasized their needs and expectations around IRIS.

As introduction, the point of view of a system integrator – Siemens Mobility- was explained by Michael Wix. He highlighted the areas of importance for them within the scheme as well as their requirements.

The IRIS General Manager, Bernard Kaufmann enhanced the information with the achievements after almost 4 years and the Rev 02 specificities. He insisted on the 2010 targets in term of certificates and the survey to be launched to show measurements of improvements coming out from an IRIS deployed system.

Another presentation was made by DEKRA experts, to explain the Interoperability challenge through the TSI tools.

Finally, a consultant gave some past experience about IRIS implementation in 15 companies.

Wolfram Domke, from DEKRA Certification moderated the seminar and conclude with hints about the IRIS Audit-tool and the certification body tasks.

Even when France rail industry is one of the main contributor to IRIS certificates today, there is still a need of communicating to its members about the evolutions, the benefits and the requirements of the IRIS scheme.

Therefore the French Mechanical Industry Association (FIM) together with AFNOR Certification, an IRIS approved Certification Body, have organized a dedicated seminar with 70 of their members and customers on November 17th, 2009 in Paris La Défense. Jacques Cracosky (FIM) and Florence Méaux (AFNOR Certification) opened the seminar.

Among all invited speakers, three IRIS Advisory Board members made very clear statements on evolutions and requests towards IRIS.

Hubert de Blay, IRIS Chairman and Alstom Transport representative has presented the objectives and global position of the industry.

Nicolas Gravier, Supply Quality Director at SNCF, presented the vision of an operator and the requests of SNCF towards their supply chain.

Bernard Kaufmann, IRIS General Manager, presented the current status of the scheme, gave overall information about the IRIS Rev.02 and showed the comparison with other industrial schemes (AS, ISO, TS) versus IRIS.

The seminar gave also the opportunity to the representative of a certified company to share the experience of a successful implementation. Dominique David, Compin Group Quality Manager has explained the benefits during the deployment in the group.

Last but not least, Claude Bouteaud, AFNOR Certification IRIS Lead Auditor, highlighted the specific features of IRIS for a sustainable organization and gave his recommendations from his auditing experience.

On November 11th, ISO/CASCO organized his second workshop on the role of the International Standards.

The purpose was to analyze and discuss on major topics linked to the conformity assessment of Standards. After having addressed the concept of market surveillance last year, the emphasis was this year on the private sector and its management of the supply chain with a focus on traceability.

This workshop was mainly dedicated to the ISO members. 80 persons were participating physically in the workshop in Geneva at the WMO, whereas 60 people attended through a webinar connection. All these attendees represent locally ISO in more than 30 countries all around the world.

Bernard Kaufmann, IRIS General Manager, was invited as a speaker by the ISO/CASCO Chairman, Mr. Olivier Peyrat. It was the opportunity, within the industry association panel,to show how IRIS is bringing the Rail Sector Supply Chain towards sustainable business with the aim of having better products through better organizations. Configuration management requested by IRIS is the answer in our sector to the need of traceability.

The conclusion of the workshop among all presentations done by the different industries was highlighting the need of managing the global supply chain in line with clear standards. Traceability appears obviously as a mandatory tool by dealing with safety, security and business issues.

We thank ISO/CASCO having given IRIS the floor for explaining our scheme to a worldwide attendance.

The 2nd IRIS Conference gave reason for a double celebration as the Hungarian rail equipment producer Jarmuszerelvenyt Gyarto RT was awarded with the 300th IRIS certificate.

With Rail Operators now playing an active role in the certification process, IRIS has taken another important step towards becoming the universal standard for rail technologies.

“IRIS is a European dialect that shall become a world language”, stated Dr Manfred Lerch, Executive VP at Voith Turbo, encapsulating the spirit of the 2nd IRIS conference held in the European quarter in Brussels. With now 300 companies having completed the IRIS certification process worldwide, the standard has become an international seal of quality recognised by Rail Operators and Producers alike.

This view was shared by Peter Boels, Head of Quality at Bombardier Transportation, as he reconfirmed commitment to the IRIS standard, realising that “today, many rail operators give preference to IRIS certified rail suppliers.”

Great support of IRIS was also expressed by Massimo Baldinato, Member of Cabinet of Transport Commissioner and Vice-President of the European Commission Antonio Tajani. In his statement he emphasised that “in order to ensure rail safety, rail companies have to rely on strong business management systems that can only be achieved through IRIS certification.”

Hubert de Blay, IRIS Chairman and Urban Platform Product Director at Alstom Transport, confirmed this point of view: “The remarkable output of IRIS after just three years is the product of constructive team effort. Rail Operators are already deeply integrated in the certification process, thereby simplifying the qualification procedure.”

This viewpoint is shard by Rail Operators, as Alain Flausch, President of UITP and CEO of STIB Brussels Public Transport, highlights: “The goal of UITP is to double the market share of public transport against private car use in the medium term. Key to this is innovative and reliable rail products certified by the IRIS standard.”

On September 3rd, 2009 TÜV Nord has organized a railway seminar centered on IRIS. Around 50 people attended several presentations. Mr. Alexander Iulian Stan from CFR on behalf of the Transport ministry summarized the railway infrastructure situation in Romania.

Bernard Kaufmann, IRIS General Manager, developed the basics of IRIS and the last evolutions linked to the IRIS Rev. 02. Kay Jürgensen, IRIS Product Manager at TÜV Nord, explained the steps for implementation and certification for IRIS.

After this main part, several presentations completed the seminar:

- EU Directives and Regulations (EC Testing procedures, TSI, ETCS, CCS) by Mr. Stefan Andree from TÜV Nord,- Sharing experiences of an operator and a manufacturer in Europe by Mr. Frans Zoetmulder from EMD,- Railway Safety Management System and Certifications by Mr Valentin Berca from BRK Systems,- Maintenance and repair service provider and CMW by Mr. Florentin Nicolae, Lead Auditor at TÜV Nord Romania.

During the whole day, many questions were raised by the audience, which gave the opportunity to the speakers to clarify all interrogations.

On 05 and 06 October 2009, the IRIS Management Centre will host the
second IRIS Conference in the Renaissance Brussels Hotel (Brussels,
Belgium).The first day will gather high level speakers from Industry
and Operators to highlight the need to move forward in the direction of
an entire rail sector scheme. The second day event will bring together
representatives from Rail Stakeholders to discuss mainly the necessity
and the advantages to be IRIS certified, how and why IRIS is quickly
expanding worldwide and the differences of IRIS Revision 02 .

IRIS approved certification bodies will be present to provide advice and guidance in the IRIS Certification process.

We expect the participation of CEOs, Managing Directors and Quality Managers of the Rail Sector companies.DUE TO LIMITED SEATS, WE HIGHLY RECOMMEND YOU TO REGISTER ONLINE BEFORE THE 31st JULY 2009.

On June 23rd, 2009 TÜV Rheinland was having his IRIS Symposium in Cologne. Around 45 attendees were having the privilege of getting the first details of the new IRIS release.

Bernard Kaufmann, IRIS General Manager, explained the evolutions linked to the IRIS Rev. 02 launched officially on June 18th. Then, several feedbacks and best practices were given by following speakers:

IRIS Rev. 02 was officially launched during the last UNIFE General Assembly in Warsaw.

From today on the new IRIS booklet Rev. 02 is available in the shop in 4 languages, click here.

Additional languages (Spanish and Czech) will be soon available through our partners.

The Audit-tool V3 is currently under production and will need 2 additional weeks to be shipped to customers.

MAIN CHANGES

- Standard in line with ISO 9001:2008 requirements- Integration of ISO 9004:2009 guidelines - Requirements improved and now in line with the needs from Rail Operators who contributed to the development of the Standard- Remote Functions rules improved- IRIS auditor time chart improved- Rules how to score the questionnaire have been clarified- Required and recommended processes, procedures, KPI’s and records are now summarized in one single table.- Reduction scheme available for Companies upgrading from other standards, having single IRIS activity and benefit from compensative and rewarding approach- Availability of a simple tool to calculate the audit time depending on company characteristics- Readiness review improved and now fully supported through the new Audit-Tool V3

IMPACT OF CHANGES

Certification audits against IRIS Rev. 01 can be performed until the end of 2009.

From January, 1st 2010 only Rev. 02 certification audits will be allowed.

Existing Rev. 01 certificates can be kept until their natural validity date.

Immediately after official launch of the IRIS Revision 02, you will be able to get detailed information about this major evolution of the Rail Standard during the seminar organized by TÜV Rheinland in Cologne on June 23rd, 2009.

We are sure that this seminar will gather many companies interested to improve their performance through IRIS.

18th of June 2009 is a date to remember – the date of the official launch of the new IRIS Rev. 02.

After three years from the official launch of the first IRIS Standard and after a huge and intensive improvement work, the IRIS Group is proud to announce big evolutions.

MAIN CHANGES

- Standard in line with ISO 9001:2008 requirements- Integration of ISO 9004:2009 guidelines - Requirements improved and now in line with the needs from Rail Operators who contributed to the development of the Standard- Remote Functions rules improved- IRIS auditor time chart improved- Rules how to score the questionnaire have been clarified- Required and recommended processes, procedures, KPI’s and records are now summarized in one single table.- Reduction scheme available for Companies upgrading from other standards, having single IRIS activity and benefit from compensative and rewarding approach- Availability of a simple tool to calculate the audit time depending on company characteristics- Readiness review improved and now fully supported through the new Audit-Tool V3

IMPACT OF CHANGES

The IRIS Rev. 02 booklet will be available on the IRIS Portal in 4 languages (English, German, French and Italian) from June 22nd on.

Spanish and Czech languages will be immediately available directly by our partners.

Certification audits against IRIS Rev. 01 can be performed until the end of 2009.

From January, 1st 2010 only Rev. 02 certification audits will be allowed.

Existing Rev. 01 certificates can be kept until their natural validity date.

The IRIS Management Centre and the IRIS approved certification bodies will further support you.

On March 10th, VDMA, a German association of machine tool industry organized a Workshop / experience exchange day in Hamburg. Many members of the association are also involved in the Railway industry and were expecting some information about the IRIS Certification scheme which is an important step for entering more deeply in the business.

Around 40 members attended the seminar hosted in the Hamburger Hochbahn (public transport operator) premices.

Axel Sandvoss VDMA Nord, introduced the meeting and presented the agenda which was built to give a large overview of IRIS.

Bernard Kaufmann, IRIS General Manager presented the targets, the relation with other certification schemes, the current status as well as the next steps of IRIS.

Eckhard Schultz from IFV gave his view related to the German needs.

Andreas Heinzmann, Bombardier Transportation Quality Director showed a system integrator involvement and their internal deployment. He explained also the supply chain management strategy of Bombardier.

Luay Sander explained how EVAC implemented IRIS in their organization, step by step and focusing on the difficulties and achievements. He expressed a final satisfaction and highlighted the opportunity of improvement for companies through IRIS.

Heinz Welling, Harting Central Quality Manager gave his feedback as the first IRIS certified company. He focused also his presentation on the multi scheme certification of his company linked with their presence in several markets like automotive, telecom,…

Finally, Christof Höbing, Lead Auditor of DQS explained the vision of a certification body. He gave the focus to be taken into account as well as some hints how to overcome easily the difficulties.

All the presentations were completed by a Q/A session and Axel Sandvoss assessed the day as a positive signal for its industry and agreed that clear statements were given by the speakers.

Dr. Mohammad Montazeri, Deputy Managing Director of TUSRC, welcomed the seminar by pointing out the challenges of the public transport in Iran: environmental and urban development.

Mr. Saied Kavkani, Quality Deputy, Vice-President of Iran Khodro Industrial Group, presented how the implementation of the ISO/TS 16949, 15 years ago, forced the Quality improvements into the local industry. He welcomed that Railway will step now into the same scheme.

Bernard Kaufmann, IRIS General Manager, presented a complete view of the IRIS scheme, from early definition to the current status and the forecasts for 2009. After the presentation, many questions were raised to Mr. Kaufmann mostly dedicated to the implementation in Iran of IRIS.

Mr. Seyed Bahrehdar, Vice-President of the Iranian Association of Rail Transport Engineering closed the seminar by looking forward for an active local interest to the global Certification scheme of the Rail Sector: IRIS.

The framework agreement between SGS – Systems and Service Certification has been signed the 08th of December 2008 by Malcolm Reid SSC Executive Vice President, Marc Stauffer SSC & CTS Business Controller and Bernard Kaufmann General Manager IRIS Management Centre.

SGS is the world’s leading inspection, verification, testing and certification company.

Recognized as the global benchmark for quality and integrity, SGS employs over 50 000 people and operate a network of more than 1 000 offices and laboratories around the world.

The audit and certification services SGS provides allows to its costumers to enhance their business processes and get out in front of the issues affecting them. With the proposed services SGS allows its costumers to deliver extra value, improve their quality management and performance, minimise risk and gain a real advantage over the competition.

IMQ, an IRIS approved certification Body is organizing the first dedicated IRIS seminar in Teheran (IRAN) next February 3rd, 2009. The local railway supply chain is very developed; this is a reason why around 100 attendees are registered until now.

Several presentations are forecasted on supply chain & quality management.

During the discussions, the need of implementation of IRIS in the US market became obvious with the expectations to bring more reliable organizations and more confidence towards the rail customers. Information on IRIS must therefore be continued and US transit authorities should be quickly involved. First contact exists and several operators are already aware about IRIS. The strong involvement of the system integrators through their local locations (AT, BT & ST were present at the seminar) is also good news.

On November 20th, BSI Management Systems organized their first IRIS Seminar in UK.

It was hold in Whittlebury and close to 40 persons attended the presentations.

IRIS Management Centre was represented by Bernard Kaufmann, IRIS General Manager, he gave the current status of the scheme and its next developments. An industrial experience with IRIS was given by Dr Stephen Hughes from Bombardier Transportation. Davis Scrimshire from TEC explained some tips for an efficient implementation in the Business Management System of the companies.Finally, John Hele, BSI Product Manager showed how BSI would achieve the IRIS certification process in the companies.

Time was given for answering questions of the audience where the focus was made on implementation in the UK market.

TÜVRheinland® in collaboration with Wabtec Passenger Transit will hold North America’s first seminar on IRIS.

Industry insiders expect that IRIS will be adopted in the U.S. and Canada beginning in 2009.

The free seminar provides a forum to learn about the standard and its certification requirements. It is expected to attract railway suppliers exporting to Europe and Asia and/or preparing for the standard’s impending introduction in North America.

Key speaker is the IRIS General Manager from UNIFE (The Association of the European Rail Industry) in Brussels. He is going to present a detailed overview of the standard and offers regulatory insights.

The event also provides first-hand accounts from Wabtec as well as from a TÜVRheinland® IRIS Lead Auditor.

TÜVRheinland’s IRIS seminar will take place on Jan. 8, 2009 from 9:30 a.m. – 2:30 p.m. at the Hotel Spring Hill Suites at Newark Liberty International Airport.

For more information please visit the IRIS Portal and download the flyerin the news section.

Last November 13th, 2008, the Non-Commercial Partnership – Union of the Industries of Railway Equipment (NP-UIRE) of Russia, launched the IRIS Standard translation in Russian language.

This day was the opportunity to exchange experience during a dedicated seminar organized in Moscow, Rizhskaya Station.

In front of 150 attendees from the Russian rail stakeholders (government, operator, industry), the speakers presented a full statement on IRIS.

First, Valentin Gapanovich, President of NP-UIRE, introduced the seminar by setting the targets of the rail sector in the next five years.

Vladimir Gutenev, from SoyuzMash Russia, gave the link with the governmental decision in term of strategy for the industry.

Bernard Kaufmann, IRIS General Manager, explained furthermore the basics of the IRIS scheme with its targets and achievements. A current status of IRIS was made. The forecast for 2009 in term of communication and technical as well as the implementation in Russia were presented.

It’s time to exchange experiences in order to ensure that IRIS standard represents an excellent choice in the certification world.

LRQA and Bombardier, together with all involved IRIS actors, believe that IRIS certification can become the main tool for organisations who want to evaluate and improve all opportunities for Client satisfaction.

The invited speakers are coming from Railway Industry, LRQA and IRIS mMnagement Centre.

This free seminar will take place at Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnica – Milan, on 14 November 2008.

Suppliers to the rail industry share a common purpose in seeking to provide increased reliability and continual improvement in terms of their business performance.

With issues such as safety, sustainability and risk at the top of the agenda, BSI Management Systems invites you to attend a FREE seminar.

The seminar is designed to educate organisations on how achieving certification to the IRIS standard can help address the complexities and challenges involved in developing and growing a lucrative business, and to discuss the requirements for certification to this standard.

With guest speakers from UNIFE and Bombardier, the event takes place at Whittlebury Hall, Towcester, Northamptonshire on 20 November from 1pm.

Nearly 70 people attended the IRIS seminar organized in Beijing on 10 October 2008by AFNOR International.

The seminar was introduced by Foucauld de Lauzon, Director Asia of AFNOR International, who gave an overview of AFNOR activities in Asia.

The IRIS Management Centre was represented by Bernard Kaufmann, IRIS General Manager,and by Giuseppe Greco, IRIS International Manager.

The presentation provided to the audience was structured in 3 parts:

1- IRIS introduction & status: motivating the “need for IRIS” of the Industryand giving reference numbers on IRIS current status and further steps for the future.

2- IRIS Rev 01 and addendum: explaining what the IRIS Rev01 and IRIS Addendum,19th June 2008 have introduced in terms of requirements and process improvements.

3- IRIS quickly: how to set up the Business Management System to become compliantwith IRIS requirements and how to use IRIS products at best, giving details on the advantagesof using a common database (IRIS Portal) and a software to run audits (Audit-tool).

Many questions arose from the audience, mainly focusing on requirements which are veryspecific of the Railway Industry, such as RAMS and LCC.

In the afternoon the Quality Manager Zhicheng Dai from Bombardier CPC Propulsion System gave information on the IRIS Certificate awarded by the Bombardier Chinese location.

Finally Mr. Nelson Zeng (AFNOR International) detailed all steps done so far for the development of the IRIS Certification in China.

The seminar IRIS: A SUCCESS STORY took place on Friday 26 September at Innotrans 2008.

The seminar was introduced by Michael Clausecker, UNIFE Director-General, and moderated by Hubert de Blay, Chairman of the IRIS Steering Committee who gave an overview of the current IRIS status and the objectives for the future.

Susanne Schaub, SBB/CFF/FSS Quality Manager, explained how IRIS is actually a “gift for our passengers…” and how the IRIS Certification is helping SBB/CFF/FSS on the way to Excellence (customer focus).

Colin Clarke, Chairman of the Americas Aerospace Quality Group (AAQG), discussed mostly on the new AS9100 2008 edition, reporting on objectives, processes and on key changes which have occurred within the latest release.

Peter Stauffer, CEO HaslerRail AG, presented the IRIS status in the company after 2 years of implementation and how this can be linked with the economic growth HaslerRail is facing in the recent years. Additionally, he gave interesting tips to companies who are now approaching the IRIS Certification.

Luigi Buonocore, Faiveley Italia Quality Director, summarised how Faiveley Italia prepared internally to meet all IRIS requirements and which business areas are mostly affected by improvements introduced by the IRIS system.

Finally, Mark Flint, Sigma Coachair Group Asia Pacific Development Manager, explained how the IRIS Certification can assist companies in delivering a cost effective high quality product that will meet or exceed customer expectations for its life duration.

Following the question & answer session Hubert de Blay concluded by looking forward to meeting all interested parties during the 2nd IRIS Conference in Autumn 2009, in Brussels.

IRIS will take part at the biennial INNOTRANS fair in Berlin from 23-26 September 2008. There will be a dedicated IRIS area on the UNIFE corporate exhibition stand, located inHall 2.2, opposite Bombardier Transportation.

The IRIS Management Centre will distribute leaflets, giveaways and will be pleased to provide any interested party information about IRIS in order to facilitate as much as possible the approach to this new certification scheme.

Visitors will also have the possibility to directly buy on-site the IRIS booklet and the IRIS Audit-tool.

Moreover, on Friday the 26 September, from 10h00 to 12h00, there will be an IRIS seminar (Hall 7, room Europa) with the running title IRIS: a success story.

During the UNIFE General Assembly 2008, hosted in Paris on the 19th of June, Hubert de Blay, Chairman of the IRIS group, reported about IRIS achievements of 2007/2008 as well as IRIS objectives for 2009.

Furthermore he officially launched the IRIS Addendum, 19th June 2008, which aims to inform about the extension of IRIS to maintenance activities and contains key changes and new requirements to be fulfilled in order to become IRIS certified from now on.

The Conference “Modern Methods of Quality and Competitiveness Improvement in Railway Industry - International Railway Industry Standard (IRIS)” took place June 3rd, 2008 in Kiev, Ukraine.

More than 80 representatives of the Ukrainian Railway stakeholders visited the Conference.

The Conference was opened by Deputy of Ukraine Zalizhnitsya General Manager A.Lashko. IRIS General Manager B. Kaufmann developed the status and the key drivers about IRIS scheme. Then Bureau Veritas Lead Expert P. Bonnaerens presented his Master Class – What you should know in advance.

Lead Auditors of Bureau Veritas Certification Ukraine told about their experience in implementation and certification of Management Systems according to ISO 9001; 140001 and BS OHSAS 18001 on Railway Industry.

Gathering more than 200 participants from the global rail sector, the International Railway Industry Standard (IRIS) conference kicked-off in Brussels on 21 May. All stakeholders from the rail industry were present at the two-day event - from operators to manufacturers to infrastructure managers.

“This is the first time that the Industry and Operators are working together to achieve a common Quality International Rail Standard. The standard aims at enhancing the quality image of the railway sector, enhancing the efficiency of the business programme, the various processes and therefore the product,” commented Bernard Kaufmann, General Manager of IRIS. “By complimenting the internationally recognized ISO 9001 quality standard with the specific requirements of the railway industry, IRIS establishes itself as the new global rail standard,” he added.

Opening the conference, Bernard Gonnet (Vice-President Product & Strategy of Alstom Transport and Member of the UNIFE Strategy Committee), reminded the audience of the daily challenges being faced by the rail sector especially in relation to the hot topic of product efficiency and sustainability. He stated, “by improving the business management system, IRIS implementation leads to quality improvements and cost reductions by incorporating more efficient and effective business processes throughout the entire supply chain.”

Pierre Pelouzet (Purchasing Director of SNCF) explained the clear commitment from SNCF to work with IRIS, stating “IRIS is a key element of trust in the certification to improve the quality of the product.”

Mr. Smaxwil (Senior Vice President Siemens Mobility) stated “IRIS increases the chances for the European Rail Industry that a good product will be made at a reasonable price.” He explained that the European Market can increase its competitiveness through by better quality and innovations. Thanks to IRIS, it is visible.

The second day of the conference was dedicated to in-depth presentations such as project management and risk management issues. Certification bodies, equipment manufacturers and system integrators were present to discuss technical topics in details.

Olivier Peyrat concluded the conference by explaining the future strategy of ISO.

The list of participants, the programme and the CV of the speakers are available for download here.

All presentations are available for download in the dedicated news just below.

AICQ, the Quality Control Italian Association, Railway sector, organized asecond common IRIS conference in Florence on the 15th of May 2008.

The event followed the one already performed in 2007, when the IRIS certificationwas still not well known in the Italian market and many stakeholders where questioning about the added values given by the IRIS Standard to the Industry.

The conference was moderated by Mr. Ferrazzini (ANIE/ASSIFER) who introduced thetopics and the speakers.

Mr. Greco (UNIFE-IRIS) gave a general overview of the IRIS system, highlighting thedifferences between the ISO 9001 and the improvements introduced in the Standardwith the launch of the Rev01 in November 2007, providing as well some key figures that showed the current development of the system and the next steps.

Mr. Buonocore (Faiveley Transport) and Mr. Muolo (Mer Mec SpA) reported thechallenging path to achieving, first in Italy, the IRIS certification which broughtthis 2 companies to become the first IRIS certified in Italy.

Some very interesting analysis where given by the 2 speakers, who detailed the activities performed internally to align their business managementsystems to the more demanding IRIS requirements.

RINA, IRIS approved certification body, and CETREN, Notified Body in the Spanish railway sector, organized a second common IRIS Seminar in Barcelona, Spain on April 29th, 2008.

This IRIS seminar followed the increased interest of the Spanish railway market in the last months regarding to IRIS.

Bernard Kaufmann, IRIS General Manager, presented IRIS, the current status and the methodology. The requirements of a System Integrator were given by Angela de Heymer from Bombardier Transportation. The role of RINA and CETREN were presented by Marta Carvajal from CETREN and Luis Alberto Sánchez from RINA.

The attendees, belonging to equipment manufacturers, system integrators and operators railway companies, took the opportunity to exchange views, experiences and to get answers to their IRIS specific questions.

Mr. Kaufmann stated after the seminar: “I believe, that the IRIS train has also started in Spain. Communication will be continued in order to give the maximum chance to every stakeholder to participate in the improvement wave in the railway sector. The IRIS Management Centre will further support the stakeholders.”

Due to limited seats, we highly recommend you to pre-register, by phone to Mrs. Dea Biani (tel. +39 010 5385460) or via email to dea.biani@rina.org. The confermation has to be sent to RINA, using the attached form, before May 5th 2008.

AICQ, the Quality Control Italian Association, Railway sector, is organizing its yearly conference in Florence, which contains includes a specific part to monitor the progress of IRIS certification in Italy. UNIFE is invited to highlight the main points of version 01 of the standard and the development of IRIS certification worldwide; moreover, two important italian railway manufacturers will report on their direct field experience for obtaining the IRIS certificate in accordance to version 01.

AICQ considers that the conference will be a refreshment of the conference of May 2007, where the IRIS standard and the certification process were explained and discussed with an attendance of more then 200 italian industry representatives.

Other conference topics wil be the setting up of the italian Railway Safety Authority and a round table on "Sustainable signalling ".

The conference will take place on May 15th in the Hotel Londra, Florence.

If you are interested, please contact Mrs.Alessandra Suardi, AICQ Secretary, at aicqna.segreteria@aicq.it

Rina, approved by UNIFE as IRIS certification Body, and CETREN, Notified Body in the Spanish railway sector, are organizing a second common IRIS Seminar in Spain.

With the aim to know the IRIS standard, its benefits and the process to follow for obtaining certification, all interested parties are invited to participate in this seminar with the collaboration of UNIFE-IRIS representative, which will take place onApril 29th, 2008 in the hotel Fira Palace, Barcelona.

If you are interested, please contact directly Marta Carvajal at mcarvajal@cetren.es

On April 4th, 2008, AENOR, an IRIS approved certification body conducted an IRIS dedicated seminar for the Spanish Railway stakeholder in Madrid.

Nearly 60 people attended the presentation of Bernard Kaufmann IRIS General Manager dedicated to the principles, status and targets. Angela de Heymer, Bombardier Transportation Group Quality Manager and IRIS Technical Forum for Improvement Leader explained the position of a system integrator. David Martinez de Miguel, AENOR Product manager, presented the role of the AENOR and their certification approach.

Many technical questions were raised, as well as on system integrator position. The participant feedback was very positive and reinforcing the need of the high level IRIS scheme.

On April 2nd, 2008, ACRI the Czech National Railway Association organized an IRIS dedicated seminar for its members. 40 people attended the presentation of Bernard Kaufmann IRIS General Manager dedicated to the principles, status and targets.

Angela de Heymer, Bombardier Transportation Group Quality Manager and IRIS Technical Forum for Improvement Leader explained the position of a system integrator.

Many questions were raised, on technical and process point of view, where both answered explicitly. The success of the seminar was achieved by giving the Czech Railway industry the necessary information to be convinced about the need of implementation and the high level of IRIS scheme.

In the occasion of “Affidabilità e Tecnologie” and “Expoferroviaria” trade fairs TÜV Rheinland, international certification body for products, management systems and services, will organize two workshops whose purpose is to explain, step by step, what companies should do in order to adapt their Management System to the IRIS Standard Rev. 1: gap analysis, action plan, intervention areas, certification process to obtain the final certification within the requested deadlines.

All interested parties are invited to participate to the workshops that will take place on the 17th of April at “Affidabilità e Tecnologie” and on the 21st of May at “Expoferroviaria”.

IMQ, Italian body operating product and management systems certification, approved by UNIFE as IRIS certification body will organize two workshops in Milan and in Turin, in the course of the specialized trade fair Expoferroviaria.

The purpose of these workshops is to provide some information about IRIS objectives, certification process and technical issue.

All intersted parties are invited to participate to the workshop that will take place on April 3th in IMQ Milan, and in Turin on 21 of May.

For any detailed information and registration please download the attached file

AENOR, national and international recognized organization, accredited for the certification of management systems and approved by UNIFE as IRIS certification Body will organize an IRIS Seminar in Madrid, Spain.

The aim of the seminar is to introduce the IRIS system, assessment guideline and its benefits and steps to follow for certification.

All interested parties are invited to participate in the seminar, which will take place April, 4th 2008 in AENOR facilities, Madrid.

On 21st and 22nd of May, the IRIS Management Centre will host the first IRIS Conference in the Crowne Plaza Brussels. The 2-day event will bring together representatives from the Rail Industry to discuss the necessity to be IRIS certified. It will be a great opportunity to learn more about the IRIS Standard and network with key decision-makers. The first day will gather high level speakers to present the need for a high level certification for Rail and the challenge of the Asian competition for European manufacturers. We expect the participation of CEOs, Managing Directors and Quality Managers.The second day will be dedicated to technical exchanges on various subjects such as Risk and Process management, continuous improvement and IRIS Revision 1.DUE TO LIMITED SEATS, WE HIGHLY RECOMMEND YOU TO PRE-REGISTER ONLINE BEFORE THE 21st MARCH 2008.

On the 12th March 2008 BSI Management Systems signed the framework agreement with UNIFE to enable audits to IRIS to be carried out globally. The agreement was welcomed by Flemming Norklit, Managing Director of BSI Management Systems and Bernard Kaufmann General Manager IRIS Management Centre. Robin Pilcher and John Hele will develop the new IRIS Scheme within the BSI client panel.

BSI Management Systems is a global certification body, conducting assessment to a large range of management system and product standards to a complete range of product and services sectors. BSI Management Systems has over 60 offices around the globe and operates in over 100 countries from Australia to Iceland.

Agoria, the Belgian Association organized for its members an updated information seminar dedicated to IRIS. It took place on February 22nd, 2008 in Brussels. 35 managers were present, representing 22 companies in order to update or integrate the IRIS scheme and status.

Bernard Kaufmann, IRIS General Manager, Louis Baeyens, Bombardier and Heinz Welling Harting informed and answered about their current experience and expectations.

It was a good opportunity indeed, for the Belgian Railway Industry to enter in the improvement scheme lead by the IRIS Initiative.

On invitation of the approved CB AFAQ, more than 70 Railway responsible attended an IRIS Seminar in Shanghai (PRC) on February 2nd, 2008.

Bernard Kaufmann, IRIS General Manager presented the initiative and its current status before Mr. Xie Weida, Professor at Tongji University showed a technical analyze of the Chinese Railway market and needs. The requirements of the System Integrator were given by Mr. Jose Manuel Tabuenca from Alstom Transport and an application example shared by Mr. David Dupen from Air International Group.

After the seminar, it was the time where the two first certificates for Chinese companies were officially awarded. The Air International Transit and Bombardier CPC Propulsion Systems companies are now part of the currently 55 certified companies in 4 continents.

End of January 08 took place the first IRIS Auditor training located in Asia.

During 4 days, Bernard Kaufmann, IRIS General Manager and Gregor Pitikaris, IRIS Trainer, transmit knowledge and experience and finally examined 13 auditors in Seoul (Korea). The outcome was positive for 12 of them.

After final validation from the IRIS Auditor Validation Committee, new auditors in Australia, China, Japan, Korea and India will be available for CBs and companies. This extension around the world of IRIS will once more confirm the need of improvement of all railway stakeholders wherever they produce parts.

Another training is forecasted in Asia in June 08, let’s believe that it will be also fully booked!

AFAQ/AFNOR International is organizing an IRIS Seminar in Shanghai on February 2nd, 2008.

It will be the first dedicated event to the Railway specific Standard.

Railway Industry is largely represented in China and also all major worldwide System Integrators are present in the country.

During the seminar, where Bernard Kaufmann, IRIS General Manager, will introduce the scheme and its current status, AFAQ/AFNOR will take the opportunity to show its strategy for the development of IRIS in China and also handover the two first IRIS Certificates for Chinese companies.

Other speakers will give their expectations and/or experiences on IRIS.

November 19th was the day were RINA an IRIS approved Certification Body in collaboration with CETREN (Spanish Notified Body) organized an IRIS Seminar in Madrid.

More than 100 representatives from the Spanish Railway stakeholder were present. Bernard Kaufmann, IRIS General Manager and Angela de Heymer, IRIS Technical Form for Improvement Leader from Bombardier presented the status after launching the Rev. 01 on November 1st and gave details on the assessment process and the specific IRIS requirements.Pedro Ferrer an IRIS approved auditor showed a deep process and procedure analyze versus the ISO 9001:2000 Standard. Finally, Cristina Bianchi, product manager RINA presented the roles of the Certification Bodies and their involvement in the deployment of IRIS. It was also the opportunity to answer precise questions raised by the attendees.

The Spanish Railway community organized the fifth International Railway Forum in Valencia last November 13th.

This was the opportunity for Bernard Kaufmann, IRIS General Manager to develop for the first time the IRIS scheme in Spain. Around 60 people attend the conference were he highlighted the importance of this unique standard for our industry.

Certified companies and a certification body were our relay during the fair with 100 stands.

On October 11th and 12th, RZD Russian Railways and Prioritet Center organized the first dedicated forum on IRIS scheme. It took place in Nizhniy Novgorod and enjoyed the participation of 150 representative of the local railway supply chain. Opened by Victor Gapanovitch Vice-President of Russian Railways, this forum gave the opportunity for multiple exchanges on technical, Quality and commercial aspects.

IRIS Group was represented by Bernard Kaufmann IRIS General Manager who explained the targets and possibilities offered by the IRIS scheme and Heinz Welling IRIS Steering Committee member and Harting representative who shared his experience as the first IRIS certified company.

The great interest and the huge Q/A session were highly appreciated.

IRIS Group expects further developments of the IRIS scheme in CIS countries soon.

In front of 40 participants, representing 36 companies, the whole path for the upgrading of the existing quality system to the IRIS Business Management System for the railway industry was explained into the details.

The workshop was positively evaluated by the attendants, who gave their active contribution with specific questions and requests for in-depth analysis.

Rina, international known entity in the certification of management systems and approved by UNIFE as IRIS certification Body, and CETREN, NoBo in the Spanish railway sector, both acting as notified body for the member state of the European commission for the TSI certification, have agreed to work together in the implementation of the IRIS system in the railway sector in Spain.

With the aim to know the IRIS standard, its benefits and the process to follow for obtaining certification, all interested parties are invited to participate in the seminar organized by RINA and CETREN UNIFE-IRIS with the collaboration of UNIFE RINA and CETREN, which will take place November, 19th in the hotel Chamartin, Madrid.

- The Standard will be applicable to Rolling Stock AND Signalling - Companies shall have activities in manufacturing AND/OR design- Remote Functions rules improved- IRIS auditor time chart improved- Reduction scheme available for Companies upgrading from other standards- 12 K.O. questions- The Audit-tool Version 2 will be the only source for the IRIS questionnaire - Specific Audit-tool Version 2 for companies with reduced costs (250 EUR per license) and special price to buy together the Audit-tool and the booklet (300 EUR)- New face to our stakeholders by improving the design of the IRIS Portal- …

The IRIS management Centre and the IRIS approved certification bodies will further support you.

On November 5th, TÜV Rheinland Italia will organise a workshop in Milan in order to explain,step by step, what companies should do in the next months in order to adapt their Management System to the IRIS Standard Rev. 1: gap analysis, action plan, intervention areas, certification process to obtain the final certification within the requested deadlines.

The meeting will be attended also by representatives of IRIS and of the System Integrators.

The workshop will be from 14 to 18, free of charge. Please send the attached registration form within October 29th.

On September 12th 2007, AENOR signed the framework agreement with UNIFE to perform audits under the IRIS Scheme. The agreement was signed by Ramon Naz Pajares, General Manager of AENOR and Michael Clausecker, General Manager of UNIFE and Bernard Kaufmann, General Manager of the IRIS Management Centre.

AENOR is an organization dedicated to the development of standardization and certification in all industrial and service sectors. Its aim is to contribute to the improvement in quality and competitiveness of companies. AENOR has issued more than 30,000 management system certificates and certified nearly 78.000 products, from its more than 30 offices in Spain, Europe and America. AENOR is a member of the certification network IQNet. As standardization body, has a compete catalogue including more than 25.000 standards. AENOR is an active member of ISO, IEC, CEN and CENELEC.

In week 37 the IRIS Management Centre performed in Milan (Italy) the first IRIS training for IRIS auditors. According to the new training scheme the IRIS Management Centre is from now on responsible for training and examining all new IRIS auditors for all approved Certification Bodies to enhance transparency and equal assessment.

The course was performed by the IRIS General Manager, Mr. Bernard Kaufmann, supported by Mr. Gregor Pitikaris and Mr. Giuseppe Greco. People attending the course showed great interest in the subject. The feedbacks collected at the end demonstrated the success of the training in line with the IRIS Management Centre expectations.

The next trainings are forecasted as follows:

From October the 23rd to the 26th in BrusselsFrom December the 4th to the 7th in Stuttgart

Please contact the IRIS Management Centre for further information at the following address: nevena.petrova@unife.org

On the 1st of August 2007 TÜV Rheinland Italia, represented by Mr. Ralf Schunk (Managing Director) has signed the Framework Agreement with UNIFE, represented by Mr. Bernard Kaufmann (IRIS General Manager) to perform IRIS audits an provide IRIS certification.

TÜV Rheinland is an international service group for certified safety and quality of systems, products and services with 340 locations in 58 countries and more than 10.000 employees.

IMQ is Italy’s leading organisation in conformity assessments (certification, tests, verifications and inspections).IMQ has issued more than 16,000 company’s management system certifications and delivered 120,000 product certifications worldwide.

IMQ provides wide-ranging and specific, targeted services in international context.

DEKRA Certification, represented by Managing Director Mr. Thomas Bergler, has signed the Framework Agreement along with UNIFE, represented by IRIS General Manager Mr. Bernard Kaufmann, and is thereby approved for the IRIS certification worldwide.

More than 12.000 customers from all over the world have trust into DEKRA Certification and its service which has been offered in more than 50 countries.With over 750 auditors in a global network DEKRA Certification provides local inspection and audit capacities in all key markets for over 30 industries.

On June 22nd, the French Federation des Industries Mécaniques (FIM) has organized jointly with the IRIS approved Certification Body AFAQ-AFNOR a awareness meeting on IRIS for their members in Paris La Défense.

Bernard Kaufmann, IRIS General Manager, presented the advantages to be IRIS certified for a railway industry stakeholder. Among the current status and next improvements concerning the IRIS Standard, he explaned the necessary steps to be ready for the target set by the System Integrators: to be certified by early 2009.Hubert de Blay, Chairman of the IRIS Steering Committee, before repeating the aims and expectations of Alstom and the other System Integrators, went through the history of the IRIS Initiative to make evident the need of the industry for a strong improvement scheme.Gisèle Frisou, AFAQ auditor, and Francine Carvalho, Quality Manager of the IRIS certified Company DUHAMEL shared their experiences with the audience.

Many questions were raised and we could notice a great interest on the initiative.The FIM will now launch further meetings locally with its members to convince them to adopt the IRIS Standard.

Taking the advantage of the location for the UNIFE General Assembly 2007, the IRIS Steering Committee and Operators Associations representatives met on the 15th of June in Madrid.The 2 Operators Associations, UIC and UITP, were represented respectively by Mr. Roland Merindol, Director of the Supplier Quality Department in SNCF, and Mr. Yvon Noel, Technical Manager of the Design Unit for Rolling Stock Department in RATP.

After the introduction of the IRIS system status, the Operators representatives shared their opinions about the IRIS Certification highlighting the major points such as awareness of IRIS in Operators Companies, strength and weaknesses of the IRIS approach compared with Operators supplier certification systems and Operator’s expectations.

Afterwards the discussion went through the definition of the targets and Principles of the railway Operators involvement in the Development and Implementation of the IRIS Standard. The next meeting scheduled in September 2007 will set up the base for a joint approach towards the IRIS development for the upcoming years.

On the 19th of June 2007, AICQ (the Italian Association for Quality Culture) organized inFlorence an IRIS Seminar with the support of UNIFE, all stakeholders of the IRIS Initiativeand all approved Certification Bodies.

UNIFE was represented by Giuseppe Greco, IRIS International Manager, who introduced theIRIS system, giving a general overview on the Project and highlighting the actual statusand the way forward.Cristina Bianchi, on behalf of RINA, and Emanuele di Nicolo' for Bureau Veritas Italiawent through the IRIS requirements explaining the evaluation and the assessment process.n the afternoon, Roberto Pecchioli, the AnsaldoBreda representative as well as member of the IRIS Steering Committee, gave the System Integratorspoint of view. He stressed out the importance and the necessity for the whole Railway Industryto adopt as quickly as possible the IRIS system and therefore benefit from the competitive edgethat the system represents today for the main Industry Actors.

The day ended with a very long and participated Question and Answer session who gave the possibilityto the audience (more then 200 participants) to clarify any kind of doubt and to start planningat best the way forward for the Italian railway Industry towards the IRIS Certification.

During the last IRIS Steering Committee, held in Madrid on 15 June 2007 Andreas Heinzmann handed over his chairmanship to Hubert de-Blay.

Andreas held this position since the beginning of the IRIS initiative and the creation of the Steering Committee. He has driven the development of the scheme and its first year life with enormous conviction and trust in achieving an essential step for the global improvement of the Quality in the Railway Industry. He will remain in the IRIS Steering Committee as Bombardier Transportation representative.

Hubert is the Alstom Transport representative in the IRIS Steering Committee and also on board since the very beginning of the IRIS initiative. He was leading first tasks in the early 2003 on behalf of UITP Working Group which was dedicated to respond to the formal claim of the metro operators on towards new goals such as maintenance finalization and operators involvement.

This year the UNIFE General Assembly was organized in Madrid on 14 June. Andreas Heinzmann, chairman of the IRIS Steering Committee has presented the annual result of the IRIS Management Centre to the UNIFE members. The audience was pleased with the results and wished great success for the next year.

From June 18th to 20th, 2007 the RailTech Russia exhibition took place in Moscow. During this event several conferences were organized on subjects like infrastructure, interoperability and standardization.

Bernard Kaufmann, the IRIS General Manager was invited to present the status and the next evolutions of the IRIS Standard. He highlighted the close go life of the Version 01 of the Standard and the improvements contained in, which confirms the high level of IRIS. He also informed about the next tasks defined in order to always keep IRIS as the reference for the Railway Industry.

During his journey, Bernard Kaufmann also visited several stands to discuss about IRIS. He distributed the new IRIS communication leaflet. He took the opportunity to meet Mr. Lipatov, the Quality and Technical Director of the Russian Railways to speak about the implementation process of IRIS within the Russian Railway Industry.

On May 24th & 25th, was organized in Sochi the 1520 Strategic Partnership Forum. A workshop called “Rail Quality and Safety from Atlantic to Pacific” was held within this event with various speakers from UIC, DBAG, Russian Railways JSC and IRIS.

The IRIS Management Centre was represented by Bernard Kaufmann who explained the IRIS initiative to the numerous stakeholders of this huge 1520 area.He insisted on the high level of the standard which applies to the whole supply chain. The differences with ISO 9001:2000 were also discussed. Several contacts were taken and discussion made around standard translation and training. The Russian Railways are willing to improve quickly the Quality level of their suppliers and therefore are pushing all the related initiatives.

After these first contacts, all stakeholders are confident that IRIS will be the answer for the Quality improvements needed in the 1520 area.

In May and June the Training department of Bureau Veritas organizes the special IRIS seminars:June, 04th-06th 2007 - SF4 (3) "Internal System auditor for the railway transportation industry (according to IRIS)"

(Prior participation of training SF1 "IRIS - Basics and requirements" and SF2 "Management review according to IRIS" is recommended)

All offered trainings can be organized as inhouse arrangements. On enquiry we gladly submit an offer for you.Please don´t hesitate to contact us either via the fax reply (enclosed in seminar information) or online on www.bvtraining.de.

QM System meets IRIS requirementsFor the adjustment of your certified quality management system (ISO 9001) to the IRIS requirements Bureau Veritas offers a GAP-analysis as well as pre audits.

On April 2, 2007, Mr Bernard Kaufmann was elected to the position of General Manager IRIS (International Railway Industry Standards). This marks the hand over from Mr Michael Wix who represented IRIS for the past two years.

In the last years, IRIS has become more and more in demand as UNIFE, the governing body of IRIS, reaches out to the industry in hopes of creating one industrial standard across the globe.

Mr Andre Navarri, current Chairman of UNIFE thanked Mr Wix for his contribution in the IRIS Group and welcomed Mr Kaufman in his new and challenging position.

Biographies are shown below’:

Mr. Wix studied Electrical Telecommunications in Darmstadt and obtained a diploma of Academically Qualified Engineer for Electrical Engineering. In 1972 he joined Siemens and was engaged in the international sales department for Public Telephone Switching Systems for Asia. From 1977 to 1980 he worked for Siemens in Tripoli (Libya) as a sales manager for public telephone switching systems. In 1991 he changed within Siemens to the Transportation Systems Group, starting in the Rail Signalling and Safety Systems Division. Since 1997 he has been responsible for various tasks within the Corporate Quality Management of the Siemens Transportation Systems Group. In October 2005 he was appointed IRIS General Manager of the UNIFE IRIS Management Centre in Brussels and will now return to the Corporate Quality Management of the Siemens Transportation Systems Group.

Bernard Kaufmann studied Mechanical Design, obtained a diploma of Qualified Technician and later one on as Industrial Manager. He spent the most of his career in the railways site of Reichshoffen in France, at the beginning owned by De Dietrich company and now an Alstom site, were he held several positions in Design office, Quality management and Sourcing Quality. Since 2003, he was in charge of the Supplier Quality Development for the key components at Alstom Transport level. He joined the IRIS working groups in January 2005 and was the lead auditor for the two A components dry run audits in October 2005. He was involved in the implementation of the IRIS standard until it went go life. From April 2nd, 2007 he is appointed as IRIS General Manager within UNIFE in Brussels.

On March 08, 2007 an IRIS forum was organized by the IRIS-approved certification body DQS (German Registrar for Management Systems) in Oberursel (near Frankfurt/Main) with more than 50 potential IRIS clients.

Mr. Michael Drechsel, Director General of DQS, opened the forum and welcomed the representatives of the railway equipment manufacturers who attended the forum to prepare themselves for the planned IRIS certification of their companies. The IRIS Management Centre was represented in Oberursel by the IRIS General Manager, Mr. Michael Wix. He explained to the potential IRIS clients the benefits and guiding principles of IRIS as well as the differences respectively add-ons compared to ISO 9001:2000. Mr. Axel Schuppe, Director General of VDB (Association of German Railway Industries) pointed out the importance of quality improvements in the railway industry and illustrated the position of rail way operators (e. g. DB and SNCF) towards IRIS. Details of the IRIS certification process, assessment guideline, requirements and questionnaire were presented by Mr. Hans Jahn, DQS IRIS Project Director. Harting Technology Group, a company specialized in electrical and electronic connectivity and network technology, was the first company in the world to be IRIS certified. The General Manager of the Corporate Quality Management of Harting, Mr. Heinz Welling, emphasized on the significance of the IRIS certification process for his company:”The IRIS certification represents the next step in cooperation with the railway industry”.

IRIS certification has already been achieved in various Eurropean countries, such as Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

On February 20, 2007 an IRIS presentation, organized by TUEV NORD Czech, took place in Prague with more than 60 potential IRIS clients. The Association of Czech Railway Industry was represented by the Executive Director, Mrs. Marie Alzbeta Vopálenská who pointed out the importance of quality improvements in the railway industry supply chain. Dr. Holger Schmidt, Corporate Quality Management, Siemens Transportation Systems, emphasized the benefits of IRIS and explained to the audience the commitment of the system integrators Alstom Transport, AnsaldoBreda, Bombardier Transportation and Siemens Transportation Systems, not to initiate and/or perform business management system audits at equipment manufacturers with a valid IRIS certificate. The IRIS Management Centre was represented in Prague by the IRIS General Manager, Mr. Michael Wix. He made clear to the potential IRIS clients that they can approach the IRIS Management Centre for any assistance regarding their forthcoming IRIS certification.

On February 22, 2007 an IRIS presentation was organized by the IRIS-approved certification body Lloyd´s Register Quality Assurance Ltd (Coventry, UK)in Bremen in order to promote IRIS in Germany and to gain new clients for IRIS certifications.

The IRIS Management Centre was represented in Bremen by the IRIS General Manager, Mr. Michael Wix, who explained to the audience the guiding principles of IRIS as well as the benefits of this new International Railway Industry Standard. He furthermore explained the considerable differences between IRIS and ISO 9001:2000, such as project management, maturity levels and scoring, assessment methodology, corrective or improvement actions, knock-out questions, procedures/processes required and requirements for auditors.

Potential IRIS clients were invited to approach the IRIS Management Centre for any assistance regarding their forthcoming IRIS certification.

On the 8th of February 2007 SIRTS (Polish Railway Association, www.sirts.pl) organized a workshop named "Certification of State Holders, Products and Services in Railway Transport System".About 90 participants from over 50 companies attended the Workshop, most of them being directly involved in management or quality management responsibilities within the Polish Railway Industry.

Giuseppe Greco, IRIS International Manager, showed IRIS peculiarities and benefits. 45 minutes of Q&A followed and the debate focused mostly on the possibility for the Operators to join the IRIS Group in the future, on specific IRIS requirements compared with the ISO 9001 as well as the future plans for IRIS growth.

The IRIS working groups have been challenging the IRIS Standard during a 3 days workshop which took place in Bombardier Headquarters in Berlin from the 11th to the 13th of December.The sub-WG 1, named “Certification process and assessment guideline” focused on key subject such as the possibility to develop a “Corporate” audit scheme as it already works for Automotive, how to upgrade to IRIS coming from other certification schemes such as EN 9100 or TS 16949, the qualifications for the witness auditors and the development of a witness auditing guideline. On the other side the sub-WG 2, named “Requirements and questionnaire”, discussed about the reorganization of the questionnaire in terms of chapter renumbering and total number of questions. Moreover they talked about the feasibility of having non-manufacturing railway related company such as Distributors, Sales, Engineering and Service to get independent IRIS Certificates.Finally the sub-WG 3, named “Audit-tool and Portal”, finalized the already approved new features for the Audit-tool and the IRIS Portal. Additionally the priority for the most important points has been agreed and the changes will be carried out in the next months. The target is to release the new version of the Audit-tool and the new functionalities if the IRIS Portal together with the new IRIS Booklet Rev 01 in June 2007.The whole working group members had the chance to debate all the above mentioned points and more, the next step will be to gain the approval for the major changes during the next Steering Committee which is scheduled to take place at the end of January 2007.

DGQ and DQS worked together to bring forth a joint training program in accordance with the International Railway Industry Standard (IRIS), which was published under the leadership of the Association of European Railway Industries (UNIFE). Participants who successfully attend the training and pass the final exam will become fully qualified Internal IRIS Auditors. The training is designed for supervisors, quality representatives, quality managers, as well as anyone in the railway or railway supply industries responsible for implementing a quality management system according to IRIS.Without an exception all of the participants proved to be ambitious and hungry for knowledge. It was their goal to use the new standard to secure competitive advantages and a leading market position for their companies. The experience and know-how of the two trainers, Hans Jahn of DQS and Wolfgang Minks, allowed them to answer all unresolved questions, and all the participants agreed that the training had been a big success. In the end every one of the participants passed their exam and received an Internal Auditor Certificate according to IRIS, making them true pioneers of this new standard for the railway industry. The next scheduled dates for training and exam are 27 Feb to 2 March, 2007 and 12 to 15 June 2007 in Frankfurt am MainTrainings are held in German. For more detailed information in German, please see www.dgq.de or go directly towww.dgq.de/quk/sem-iris-n.htm.

More than 50 clients, interested in the IRIS certification process, attended the DQS IRIS Client Forum on November 28, 2006 in Frankfurt.The IRIS General Manager, Michael Wix explained to the potential IRIS clients the development of the IRIS initiative, the current status of the IRIS deployment as well as the planned extension of the standard from rolling stock to railway signalling and maintenance.Mr. Hans Jahn from DQS described the IRIS certification process in detail emphasizing on the relationship between IRIS clients and an IRIS approved certification body. The highlight of the event was the presentation of Heinz Welling, General Manager of Corporate Quality, of HARTING KGaA in Espelkamp, Germany. Harting KGaA is specialized to produce industrial connectors, printed circuit board connectors, cable assemblies, fiber optic systems and components (a considerable part of their products is delivered for railway purposes) and the first company worldwide certified according to the International Railway Industry Standard. Heinz Welling pointed out that the IRIS certification resulted in some major improvements of specific processes and procedures within the company and that the IRIS certification is considered as an important milestone regarding the cooperation of HARTING and the railway industry.

On the 1st of September the independent foundation DNV (Det Norske Veritas) signed the Framework Agreement with UNIFE to perform IRIS Audits and issue IRIS certificates. Mr. Nico Kim, General Manager DNV Zertifizierung und Umweltgutachter GmbH, and Mr. Michael Wix, IRIS General Manager signed the document in the German office in Essen. DNV is a global provider of services for managing risk established in 1864 with the objective of safeguarding life, property and the environment. The foundation comprises 300 offices in 100 countries, with 6,100 employees.

The IRIS Audit-Tool is the software solution for recording and evaluating audit data as well as generating standardised reports of audits performed against the International Railway Industry Standard. The IRIS audit-Tool facilitates the export of completed audits to the IRIS Audit-Portal.

The IRIS Audit-Tool offers a wide range of benefits:

Easy collection of audit data through a user-friendly interface;

Quick and error-free redaction of audits reports against the International Railway Industry Standard;

Automated evaluation of the audit results by dynamic computation of all relevant items;

Simple and save export of completed audits to the IRIS Audit-Portal;

Simple exchange of audit files between the auditor and his/her competent certification body;

An update option provides constant access to the most recent IRIS version.

The Audit-Tool is available for purchasing from the Portal for all registered companies and Certification Bodies, to know more or proceed with the purchase please click here.top

IRIS seminar took place on Friday the 22nd of September at Innotrans 2006.

The seminar gave an overview of IRIS certification, also illustrating what has been achieved and what will be the upcoming targets. The main participants were equipment manufacturers, systemintegrators and national associations representatives.

Mr. Heinzmann, chairman of the IRIS Steering Committee, introduced the IRIS Certificationexplaining its main aspects and requirements also in comparison with the ISO9001:2000 QualityManagement System.One of the first IRIS certified company, Hasler Rail AG, represented by its CEO P. Stauffer,reported the challenging experience of improving their internal quality system to match the IRISrequirements. The testimony of experience of a certification body was given by Mr. Brandt, Manager in head of TÜV NORD CERT GmbH. He told the audience when and how to start theIRIS process also in combination with other Management System Certifications and how tominimize the risks of failing. The technical background of the Aerospace Standard 9100 was explained by Mr. Clarke fromBombardier Canada, Chairman of the Americas Aerospace Quality Group (AAQG). He gave an interesting evaluation of the benefits of having a tailor-made Industry Quality Standardand pointed out the key success factors.On the other hand, Mr. Lars Walther, CEO of BureauVeritas Rail GmbH, discussed about the synergy between IRIS and TSI certification from apractical point of view and the possible cost savings in terms of financial and human efforts.A similar subject was developed by Mr. Potrafke, Deputy Managing Director of EISENBAHN-CERT, who illustrated the benefits and the difficulties of the incorporation of IRISstandard in the relevant TSI.Finally Mr. Losfelt, deputy Director of Purchasing SNCF, gave the operator’s point of view alsocomparing the IRIS Certification with the Suppliers Qualification System at SNCF. He envisagedthe possibility of involving the Operators in the next IRIS working groups in order to betterunderstand and develop the Operators requirement and include them in the next revision of the IRISStandard.

This would be a huge step forward for the success of the IRIS initiative and the audience showedgreat interest in this issue: many questions were raised in the last twenty minutes and the followingdebate closed the event proving that the IRIS initiative is an attention-getting subject and a possiblebig hit for the entire railway Industry.

Please find below available for download the full PowerPoint presentation.

DQS GmbH handed over their second IRIS Certificate during the International Railway Trade Fair InnoTrans by representatives of the certification body DQS and UNIFE.

The IRIS certificate was presented to Alcan Extruded Products which, during a certification audit conducted in August 2006 in the foil rolling plant located in Singen, Germany, demonstrated the successful implementation of the IRIS requirements.

Next DQS events:

- IRIS forum on the 28th Nov 2006 in Oberursel, Germany, near Frankfurt am Main, to explain and discuss the benefits that Companies gather from the IRIS Certification.

For more information visit the webpage www.dqs.de or write to hans.jahn@dqs.de;

- IRIS Internal Auditor Qualification Course, organized together with The German Society for Quality (DGQ) and based on the guidelines of UNIFE. Prerequisite for the three-day training course is an initial qualification of DGQ Quality Representative and Internal Auditor. The training ends with a final exam to demonstrate the knowledge gained. Period 29 Nov 2006 - 01 Dec 2006.

ALSTOM has decided to apply the IRIS Standard to its own production facilities as from 2006. The first facility to be selected is the Ornans site in the Doubs department where traction and auxiliary motors and alternators for all types of railway rolling stock are designed and developed.

The facility employs 460 staff and manages more than 10 projects simultaneously (including motors for trams and the Eastern TGV (high-speed train) network). More than 250 questions were asked by the auditors and had to be answered to obtain certification.

In the coming months, the Le Creusot and Tarbes plants will be the next ALSTOM facilities to seek IRIS certification - which can be simultaneously granted with ISO 9001 certification on completion of a single audit.

The IRIS Management Center with UNIFE organize a seminar completely dedicated to the introduction of the upcoming IRIS Standard for Railway Industry that will take place on Friday 22nd of September from 10:00 A.M. until 12:00 P.M. 2006 during InnoTrans, in Berlin, Germany.

The aim of this conference is to introduce the International Railway Industry Standard (IRIS) and to explain the consequences and benefits of the IRIS quality standard from different views (please review the Agenda enclosed).

If you would like to know more about the IRIS Certification Scheme, e.g. how to achieve this competitive edge or similar questions occur to you then you should participate in this conference.

If you are interested in participating we would appreciate if you could kindly confirm your participation by sending the respond form to the IRIS Management Center not later then Monday 11th of September 2006 by fax or e-mail.

You are more than welcome to visit the UNIFE stand (hall 2.2, stand 221) during InnoTrans, where the IRIS representatives gladly inform you about the IRIS certification.

HARTING Technology Group is the first company in the world to be certified to IRIS, the new standard for the railway industry, by DQS. HARTING, a company specialized in electrical and electronic connectivity and network technology, has been certified to ISO 9001 since the year 1991 already. This standard provided the basis for the development of IRIS, where the railway industry specified its particular requirements. Unlike ISO 9001, an IRIS evaluation is based on scoring. During the assessment in April 2006 HARTING surpassed the required level of fulfillment by far.

With more than 2,000 employees in 23 countries, HARTING Technology Group develops, designs, and manufactures products for a wide range of applications. Transportation technology is one of the company’s main pillars, next to mechanical engineering, factory automation and telecommunications. Mrs. Margrit Harting, manager executive and partner of HARTING KGaA, states: “The new IRIS certification represents the next step in cooperation with the railway industry for our company.”

The aim of the addendum is to inform about improvements/clarifications in the IRIS booklet,revision 00, March 2006.As per decision of the IRIS Steering Committee the next official revision of the IRIS booklet will beconducted in 2007. The feedback received by auditors, clients, etc. during the implementation phasewill be analysed by the IRIS Group and communicated to all interested parties via the presentaddendum. The addendum is provided in each IRIS booklet or can be downloaded from the IRIS Portalwith the link beneath.

On the 31st of May 2006 RINA, Registro Navale Italiano, represented by Mr. Domenico Andreis (Director of Certification Division) signed the Framework Agreement with UNIFE, represented by Mr. Michael Wix (IRIS General Manager).

RINA is the sixth official Certification Body entitled to audit the IRIS Standard and issue IRIS Certificates to all interested companies in Italy and abroad.

On the 18th of May 2006, Mr. Andreas Heinzmann, chairman of the IRIS Steering Committee, officially announced the launch of IRIS during the UNIFE General Assembly 2006 in Geneva, Switzerland.

Now equipment manufacturers are able to apply for the International Railway Industry Standard (IRIS) from the Certification Body of their choice instead of going through auditing by the different system integrators.

Once a supplier is certified IRIS, the rolling stock system integrators would no longer require additional business management audits from their side.